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IN TENT AND 

BUNGALOW 


THE “ UNKNOWN''' LIBRARY 


THE 


‘‘UNKNOWN’’ LIBRARY. 

1. MLLE. IXE. By Lanoe 

Falconer. 

2. STORY OF ELEANOR 

LAMBERT. By Magda- 
. LEN Brooke. 

3. MYSTERY OF THE 

CAMPAGNA. By Von 
Degen. 

4. THE FRIEND OF 

DEATH. Adapted by 
Mary J. Serrano. 

5. PHILIPPA ; or, Under a 

Cloud. By Ella. 

6. THE HOTEL D’AN- 

GLETERRE, and Other 
Stories. By Lanoe Fal- 
coner. 

7. AMARYLLIS. By 

rE12Pri02 AP02INH2. 

8. SOME EMOTIONS AND 

A MORAL. By John 
^ Oliver Hobbes. 

9. EUROPEAN RELA- 
^ TIONS. By Talmage 
*''Dalin. 

10. JOHN SHERMAN, and 

DHOYA. ByGANCONAGH. 

XI. THROUGH THE RED- 
LITTEN WINDOWS, 
and THE OLD RIVER 
HOUSE. By Theodor 
Hertz-Garten. 

12. BACK FROM THE 

DEAD. By Saqui Smith. 

13. IN TENT AND BUNG- 

ALOW. By An Idle 
• Exile. 


THE “UNKNOWN" LIBRARY 


% ^ 


f 

MN TENT AND 


BUNGALOW 


BY 

AN IDLE EXILE 


A uthor of “ Indian Idyls f “ In the Mutiny 
Daysf “ By a Hhnalayan Lakef etc. 






•V 


3 r:. 

V 3S13X‘ 


/C 


NEW YORK 

CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY 

104 & 106 Fourth Avenue 



Copyright, 1892, by 

CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY. 


All rights reserved. 


THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
RAHWAY, N. J. 



IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 

^Too Clever bi? Ibalf ; 

OR, A MA UVAIS QUART D'HEURE ON 
AN ELEPHANT 

FOUNDED ON FACT. 


'E somehow looked rather 
different to the elephant of 
I my childish days, associ- 
ated with the fearful joy 
of a jolting along the 
gravel walk at the Zoo, or 
the wild excitement of the yearly 
advent of the wild beast show into 
the market place. Perhaps it was 
his surroundings. As I stood and 
gazed up at him, he seemed framed 
in a setting of delicate green bamboo 
jungle, with a patch of sun-baked 
earth for the foreground, and a 



2 


IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


great, towering, dark bunch of the 
Himalayas for the distance. He 
did not appear to object to my ad- 
miring scrutiny, for he looked at me 
knowingly out of the corner of his 
little eye, the while toying with his 
trunk with a piece of sugar-cane, 
a kind of a dessert his mahout was 
proffering him. He had previously 
partaken of an excellent meal of 
great flat chuppatties — cakes of flour 
and clarified butter. 

“ He’s a fine old chap, isn’t he ? ” 
said Bob’s voice behind me. ‘‘You 
should only have seen him tv/o months 
ago, when he was bobbery (vicious). 
We had to chain him to a tree in 
the compound, and he shook it in 
his rage ! He burst the ropes — we 
had to chain him ! ” 

I regarded Rajah — that was the 
elephant’s name — with increas^ed re- 
spect, and involuntarily increased the 
distance between myself and him as 
I inquired : 

“ He’s quite good again now, is 
he ? ” 

“ Quiet as a lamb ! ” was Bob’s 
expressive, if inappropriate, meta- 
phor. “ But we can always manage 
the Rajah, even when he is bobbery. 


TOO CLEVER BY HALF. 


3 


He’s mortally afraid of horses — 
don’t know why, but he is. We 
collected all we could, and rode 
round him, forming a circle, and 
gradually closing upon him, and he 
was regularly quailed. The 7?iahouis 
got the chains on him in a twink* 
ling ! ” and Bob called to a native to 
bring him a piece of burning wood 
from the camp fire, and lit a cigar, 
the man holding the red-hot^embei 
the while between his horny fingers. 

Bob is my elder brother. Bob 
has been an officer in the Indian 
Forest Department since I was a 
boy in petticoats. I am a subaltern 
in the Twenty-Oneth now, but 
never did I feel more of a griffs or 
Bob more of an elder brother, than 
that morning as I stood in the mid- 
die of his camp admiring his ele- 
phants. 

Bob had kindly offered me, rn my 
innocence and inexperience of the 
country, a few days tiger shooting 
in his district. Bob appeared to be 
the arbitrary ruler over a country as 
large as an English county. True, 
his subjects are not many in number, 
for that strip of the Terai, lying be- 
tween the Himalayas and the plains™ 


4 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


a marshy, jungly land, seamed with 
rocky ravines, and traversed by re- 
fractory rivers that will not adhere 
to their beds — is malarious to a de- 
gree. At certain times of the year 
even the natives flee with their cat- 
tle to the lower Himalayas, and Bob 
betakes himself to Simla. In the 
cold weather, however, Bob makes 
royal progresses through his domain, 
followed by a vast retinue of ser- 
vants and campfollowers, investi- 
gating the condition of these prec- 
ious forests, on whose existence 
much of the rainfall so necessary to 
this parched land of India depends. 

It is a solitary existence, for Bob 
does not meet another European 
for weeks together ; but it has its 
bright side. Bob is a gamekeeper 
on a vast scale. All the beasts of 
the forest are his. Globe-trotting 
princelets and peers, who are being 
shown India, are given a few days 
shooting in Bob’s district, as a bonne- 
bouche. The Terai is one vast game 
preserve, from the Suwaliks to Ne- 
paul. No wonder all my brother 
officers in the Twenty Oneth were 
green with envy when I told them of 
Bob’s invitation. 


TOO CLEVER BY HALF. 


5 


I was much impressed with Bob’s 
imposing surroundings — his white 
tents, so luxurious within, and two 
sets of them, one always sent on 
ahead to be ready for him at the 
end, or rather the middle, of his 
day’s march, for the ground was got 
over in the cool hours ; the troops 
of obsequious headmen of the vil- 
lages, to whom Bob’s nod was law ; 
his horses and ponies of many kinds ; 
his elaborate repasts of four courses, 
all cooked in a little iron stove in the 
open air, by an idiotic-looking old 
man in a white petticoat, who sat 
crooning over his cooking pots ; 
and, lastly, but certainly not least, 
by his elephants. 

There were ten of them, and a 
civil engineer in camp not far off, 
engaged — and not for the first 
Time—in trying to bridge one of the 
refractory rivers, had joined forces 
with him for a big shoot, when the 
gladsome intelligence was brought to 
us two days before that a cow had 
been killed near a neighboring vil- 
lage, and a tiger’s pads tracked 
down a pond hard by. 

I was in real luck, Bob said, yet at 
that moment I hardly realized it. 


6 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


To begin with, strange though it may 
appear, it was intensely cold — so 
cold that my fingers felt numb under 
my ulster, so cold that one could 
almost fancy that the far, far away 
snow peaks, which had gleamed all 
rosy in the sunset of the evening be- 
fore, beyond the dark mass towering 
above us, had somehow stalked close 
upon us during the darkness of the 
night. For it was still very early. 

It was dark when the bearer had 
aroused me with the cup of tea with- 
out which no European appears able 
to open his eyes in India, and, even 
now, the dawn was dim ; and Rajah 
and his companions drawn up in 
battle array, a 7nahout squatting be- 
hind the ears of each, appeared of 
huge proportions in the doubtful 
light. 

Then my mind was exercised about 
two things. The first had to do with 
the fact that though I had an excel- 
lent seat in the bamboo-cart with the 
fast-trotting country-bred I had set 
up — we of the Twenty-Oneth are 
emphatically a foot regiment— ‘‘ grab- 
bies,” they of the Bengal Light . 
Bouncable Cavalry call us — I was not 
at all sure that I could ride an ele- 


TOO CLEVER BY HALF. 


7 




phant. My childish experiences at 
the Zoo, afore alluded to, did not 
assist me. As far as my memory 
served me, my nurse sat by me and 
held my hand on those occasions, and 
she was not here to do so now. Then 
the wherewithal to ride the elephants 
appeared doubtful. On some of 
them, as the cherub said to Saint 
Cecilia when she asked them to sit 
down, ‘‘ il n'y a pas de quoi!' I was 
secretly perturbed lest Bob should 
order me to maintain a precarious 
existence squatting on the pads some 
of the great beasts carry — kinds of 
mattresses. They swayed and jolted 
in those old Zoo days on the gravel 
walk. Heaven only knew what they 
would do when we went across coun- 
try, and such country — ravines, 
rivers ! 

However, my mind was set at rest. 

Will you ride on the Rajah with 
Blake ? ” ordered Bob, and went off 
to the other elephant himself. Blake 
is Bob’s assistant, and has not been 
much longer in India than myself. 
The other sportsmen are the civil 
engineer and his “boss,” who has 
come to see how the bridge is getting 
on. 


8 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


My mind was set at rest, for, on 
his back, behind the mahout^ the 
Rajah carried a howdah, a kind of 
square basket. 

I craned my neck upward. The 
Rajah did not appear to carry a 
ladder, like his representative in the 
Regent Park, and I failed to see 
how on earth I was to mount him. 

But upon a little reminder from 
his mahout — a playful prod into his 
pachydermous with an iron spike — 
he sank to the ground, a mighty 
mass, kneeling on his fore and hind 
legs. 

Hind legs, did I say ? An ele- 
phant has none ! It is strange, but 
true. Notice it the next time you 
behold the monsters tricycling round 
the arena at Barnum’s, or perform- 
ing on the big drum. An elephant’s 
legs are all fore^ all four of them ! 

The Rajah meant well, no doubt, 
but he still towered above me, so 
high that I yet failed to see how I 
was to attain to that howdah where 
I fain would be. 

Blake solved the difficulty — Blake, 
coming hurriedly out of his tent, 
late as usual. Blake never will get 
up when he’s called, though I be- 


TOO CLEVER BY HALF. 


9 


lieve he pays his bearer extra to 
shake him, in consideration of the 
kick’s and objurgations the wretched 
menial receives in his attempt. 

An elephant is certainly a very 
versatile beast, a complete compen- 
dium of useful and necessary articles. 
The old riddle about his being the 
only animal prepared to go into the 
ark when the flood came, because 
his trunk was ready, falls short of 
the mark. He carries on himself 
the means of mounting him. 

In a twinkling Blake had made a 
neat crook at the end of the beast’s 
tail, by twisting it up, and a native 
held it as you might hold a stirrup. 
Blake, putting his foot into it, hauled 
himself up by the rest of the caudal 
appendage, and ensconced himself 
in the howdah. I followed suit, and 
just in time, ere the Rajah is seized 
with an uncontrollable desire to 
whisk his tail about. 

I found myself some twelve feet 
above mother earth, and, as the 
howdah is like a very narrow pew in 
church, I have a preliminary struggle 
with my legs, which seem to be too 
long to be conveniently stowed. 
There are two seats, one behind the 


10 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


Other. Blake has taken the back 
seat. I give him credit for a wish 
to treat me as the honored guest. 
Later on I discover his real motive. 

Here I may as well mention what 
a conceited kind of chap Blake is, 
and the airs he gives himself about 
his superior knowledge of India, be- 
cause he landed in Bombay a few 
months before I did. After dinner 
last night, while our seniors were 
discussing the delinquencies of this 
runaway river, Blake took to making 
disparaging inuendoes about the 
army. I replied by implying that 
Forest officers, in the junior grades, 
were nothing more nor less than 
nursery gardeners on a large scale. 
Blake did not seem to see it. 

When we were settled in the how- 
dah, the Rajah raised himself. A 
pitch forward, a pitch backward, and 
then, as he began to shamble after 
the rest of the procession, a pitch 
all ways at once. Happily I am a 
good sailor. But even had I been 
otherwise, the dangers of the deep — 
I mean the country — were enough 
to make one forget everything else. 
We stalked through the jungle, 
crashing under branches, fording 


TOO CLEVER BY HALF. 


II 


marshy streams, with fern-clothed 
banks, about which the Rajah seemed 
dubious, for he sounded them with 
trunk and foot ere he mounted them. 
My respect for him increased im- 
mensely, especially as, with the ex- 
ception of a very occasional word or 
prod from the 7nahout^ he seemed to 
require no driving. 

It grew suddenly daylight, as it 
does in India where the twilight is 
so short, while we were thus reach- 
ing our shooting ground. The long 
purple line of mountains came out 
clear, and behind them the snow 
range in immaculate whiteness, soon 
to be clouded again till sunset by 
the haze of heat. All around the 
fresh green of the forest and the 
luxuriant undergrowth was refresh^ 
ing indeed to eyes weary of the sun- 
baked, mud-colored plains. 

In a clearing in the forest we 
came to a sudden halt, at a patch of 
tall white elephant grass about half 
a mile square. To each far corner 
at the end of this went the two 
‘‘ stop ” elephants, carrying the engi- 
neer “boss” and Bob, while we 
others formed line with the other 


12 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


pad elephants and an army of 
coolies, to beat down the jungle. 

The excitement now became in- 
tense. We were on the extreme left 
of the line, and parallel to us, as far 
as we could see, the giant white 
grass waved like an angry sea, with 
every now and then a white sun- 
helmet or a twisting black trunk 
appearing on its surface. From 
under Rajah’s very feet game of all 
sorts broke covert unheeded. The 
scream of pea-fowl, or the whirling 
of black partridge, broke the still 
morning air, and deer of every kind 
rustled away through the grass. 

I forgot all about my cramped 
legs, I felt as if I were part and par- 
cel of the Rajah himself, as with my 
nerves strained to the uttermost I 
leant anxiously over the howdah, my 
rifle at the cock. Blake and I hardly 
dared to breathe. 

Suddenly the former gave the 
lowest possible “ hist ” of warning, 
and pointed with a finger. On our 
left, on the edge of the jungle, the 
grass was waving slowly, as from a 
mass creeping below. There was an 
opening in the bushes, and for the 


TOO CLEVER BY HALF. 


13 


minutest portion .of a moment, vve 
saw a patch of color flash through 
it — no form actually, but a kind of 
tawny glow. It disappeared, the 
grass closed over the spot, and our 
eyes involuntarily sought the edge 
of the jungle. 

Then two shots rang out sharp 
and clear into the still morning air, 
and our hearts gave a great bound. 
There was a few minutes’ silence of 
suspense, and then arose a mighty 
wah-wah-ing of the coolie host. 

Hastily we turned the Rajah out 
into the open. Toward the upper 
end of the jungle we found a shout- 
ing crowd and empty howdahs, while 
Bob and his companion were afoot, 
kneeling on the grass, triumphantly 
measuring the kill. For a kill it 
was — the great striped beast was 
stretched stiff and stark. The 
natives raised it up on to a pad ele- 
phant, and it was conveyed back to 
camp. 

Next we discovered the sun was 
getting hot, and were nothing loth 
to drink to Bob’s health in the 
sparkling whisky and soda produced 
from his howdah, our hearts jubilant. 
I am sure Blake and I felt as proud 


14 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


and exultant as if we had shot the 
tiger ourselves. As it was, we said 
to each other that we had seen him, 
though only a glimpse, and we 
should know better next tfme what 
to look for. 

But we were yearning for some- 
thing to slay. The country was 
alive with game, and, after the inter- 
val for refreshment, we began to 
beat again — a strip of thick under- 
growth this time, interspersed here 
and there with tall forest trees. 
Everything was fish that came to 
our net — spotted deer, hog deer, a 
solitary sanbre deer, as large as an 
English red-deer, pea-fowl, par- 
tridge, quail, even wild boars. There 
was an incessant fusillade all down 
the line. I do not quite know how 
much or how little I shot, but I was 
so excited that I blazed away a 
great deal* of powder, but not so 
much as Blake, I am sure. 

I now found out why he had taken 
the back seat, for I was positively 
deafened by the discharge of his 
rifle in my ear. 

Just as we were getting into our 
shooting, and felt sure we had both 
of us knocked down something, we 


TOO CLEVER BY HALF. 


15 


grew aware that the Rajah’s move- 
ments were becoming erratic. I do 
not know what it was — perhaps the 
sight of the dead tiger had disturbed 
his equanimity, but he seemed put 
out about something. His mahout 
spoke to him in terms of endearment, 
appealing to his better feelings, and 
calling him ‘‘Maharajah,” “his son,” 
“his father,” “his mother.” 

We gave up trying to shoot, and 
adjured the fuahoiitio steer the great 
beast steadily. The former then 
tried a little coercion. But the more 
he prodded the less manageable did 
the elephant seem to become. 

We were swayed about more and 
more, the great black trunk whisk- 
ing viciously in front. The pace 
grew decidedly quicker. It was 
necessary to cling on to the howdah 
to avoid being thrown out. We 
dashed under trees, had narrow 
shaves from big branches, and 
Blake’s helmet was whisked off. 

We shouted at the 7nahout^ and the 
mahout shouted at the Rajah. It 
was no question of coaxing him now. 
The man was fast losing his nerve, 
as natives often do in emergencies, 
and was calling the elephant every 


l6 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


manner of approbrious epithet. He 
was the ghost of his grandmother/' 
the son of the breath of a fowl,” 
etc., etc. 

Not that the Rajah cared one little, 
tiny bit. He went crashing through 
the forest at a pace we should never 
have given him credit for. 

It was with a deep sense of relief, 
and of thankfulness that our heads 
were still on our shoulders, that we 
found the Rajah now left the jungle, 
and evidently intended crossing an 
open strip on the river bank. 

The river must stop him ! ” 
shouted Blake. 

I made no reply. I felt utterly 
helpless. It was like being run 
away with by a railway engine gone 
mad. Also I kept all my breath for 
holding on with. 

The Rajah dashed through a patch 
of elephant grass, across some sand, 
down toward the river, now in its 
laziest mood, and meandering slug- 
gishly along in the middle of a waste 
of sand, which it would cover again 
next rains. 

The question that came uttermost 
in my mind was now, “ Would he 
roll y ” 


TOO CLEVER BY HALF. 


17 


I remembered something of a ten- 
dency of horses to do that in streams 
at home. Should the Rajah be 
seized with the same impulse, the 
howdah would be crushed to match- 
wood, and we to a jelly. But we 
were powerless in the Rajah’s hands, 
or, rather, on his back. After all, 
these beasts are not really tame,” I 
said to myself, remembering the 
stories one reads of the catching of 
elephants, which are never bred in 
confinement, but enticed out of their 
native jungles and starved into sub- 
mission. 

However, the stream seemed to 
have no terrors for the Rajah. Per- 
haps he was so wise that he knew 
how low it was now, and fordable 
for him at any part ; for, with a wave 
of his trunk, he dashed into the lead- 
colored water. 

He made a few steps, and then 
suddenly listed over, like a ship 
struck on a rock. He struggled, 
plunged, splashed frantically, while 
we held on with our eyelids. 

What on earth’s up ? ” I 
gasped. 

He’s sinking ; he can’t stand ; 


l8 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


but yet it’s quite shallow,” I heard 
Blake mutter behind me. 

The elephant’s hind-quarters 
seemed slowly to sink under Blake, 
and the truth flashed into my mind. 

It’s a quicksand ! ” I exclaimed. 

‘‘ Of course — these rivers are full 
of them; what is to be done?” 
gasped Blake. 

The Rajah himself, too, seemed to 
have realized the gravity of the situa- 
tion. He made another mighty effort 
to extricate his huge limbs, and to 
find a surer foothold. But the more 
he struggled the deeper he sank. 
His left front foot had followed the 
fate of his hind feet. He did not 
seem to be able to make it out at all. 
For he waved his trunk wildly in the 
air, as if to clutch at some support, 
and turned his head about with a 
wild look in his wicked little eye. 

Suddenly (he 7vas a knowing one) 
an idea seemed to strike him. The 
long, : writhing, black trunk came 
curling round over his head, and, 
hey ! presto ! in a twinkling the 
mahoufs turban was whisked off his 
head. 

The next moment the elephant had 


TOO CLEVER BY HALF. 


19 


popped it into the water, and had 
used it as a stepping-stone, while the 
terrified owner gave a howl of dismay, 
and slithered from the animal’s neck 
along the side of the howdah to a 
safe position in the rear, calling upon 
various of his million deities to pro- 
tect him from this shaitan'' 

Of course, the turban was useless, 
and the Rajah found himself sinking 
again. Another struggle, another 
frantic splashing, only to end in yet 
further submersion ! And then that 
evil trunk came swooping round 
again, guided by the beast’s marvel- 
ous instinct for self-preservation. 

Get back, get back, for God’s 
sake ! ” shouted Blake, or the beast 
will have you off in a minute ! ” 

But I needed no telling. Once 
again I envied Blake his back seat, 
as I hastily followed the mahoufs ex- 
ample. 

The next moment the elephant 
had seized my cartridge bag, hang- 
ing on the side of the howdah, and 
had stamped it and its contents into 
pulp in his vain struggle. Then he 
swooped back for something else. 

Blake swung out of the howdah, 
and there we all three hung, three 


20 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


helpless, pitiable objects, on the 
back of the struggling beast. Below, 
the remorseless quicksand yawning 
for us ; above, the trunk darting in 
despair to minister to the huge, 
ponderous feet. 

“ Puckerega / pucker ega / ” (‘‘He 
will seize ! he will seize ! howled 
the terror-stricken native, and, much 
as we respected the Rajah’s per- 
spicacity, we gave his keeper credit 
for knowing the full extent of his 
powers, and I for one gave myself 
up for lost. 

It was an awful time, and seemed 
ages, though probably it was not 
many minutes, ere we heard a British 
shout ring from the jungle. 

I turned my head as much as I 
dared, for I kept my eye closely on 
the Rajah’s movements, and saw 
Bob tearing down to the strip of 
elephant grass, followed by a lot of 
the coolies. 

“ Hang on ! hang on ! ” he yelled ; 
“and mind he doesn’t get hold of 
you.” 

Then they all disappeared into 
the gigantic grass, and were hidden. 

Had they deserted us, after all.? 
Could not they help us ? Alas ! how 


TOO CLEVER BY HALF. 


21 


can one get ropes out in the jungle ? 
I reflected. We should all have 
been sucked in, or crushed to pulp, 
ere they could be fetched from camp. 

As if divining my despair, the 
Rajah lifted up his voice and trum- 
petted in a blood-curdling manner, 
while his hind-qgarters sank so deep 
that we could scarcely remain on his 
back at all. 

The next moment I heard voices 
behind once more, and a huge bundle 
of elephant grass was thrown into 
the water by some half-dozen coolies. 

The noble beast (for, on the spot, 
I forgave him instantly his murderous 
intentions) clutched at it as a drown- 
ing man clutches at a straw, only to 
more purpose. He settled it cleverly 
under the fast-sinking left foot, and 
then seized another bundle they 
threw. This gave him a stepping- 
stone for a hind leg, and he gained 
it with a struggle. A few more 
bundles, a few more struggles, and 
he stood an terra firma^ and we were 
saved. 

I may say I was never so glad in 
my life to find my feet on terra jirma 
as when I descended with alacrity 
from the Rajah’s back. 


22 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


We. had each, Blake and I, a stiff 
peg from Bob’s soda-water basket, 
and then the latter suggested we had 
had enough shooting for that morn- 
ing. We acquiesced willingly, and 
everybody turned toward camp and 
breakfast. Blake and I were only 
too delighted to mount one of the 
despised pad-elephants, and the Ra- 
jah was sent to the rear in disgrace. 
But I think his nerves had had a 
shock, too, for he was very docile as 
the procession wound its way back 
to camp, under the now almost ver- 
tical rays of the sun. 

In the cool of the evening we had 
a beat on foot after quail and par- 
tridge, and such small deer, and 
made good bags. Somehow or other 
I found it easier to shoot on my own 
legs than off an elephant, and I fancy 
I gave vent to some griffish remark 
about preferring to stalk tigers on 
foot, which the older sportsmen 
jeered at, during the jovial dinner- 
hour in the cosy mess-tent. 

Ere we turned in, we went out to 
have a look at our morning’s prize. 
His striped and tawny hide was lying 
in the moonlight, stretched out taut, 
preparatory to being rubbed with 


TOO CLEVER BY HALF. 


23 


wood ashes. Bob had taken care of 
the claws and whiskers, as the natives 
are apt to carry them off as charms. 
We measured him once more, it was 
such pleasant work. 

Nine feet and a half ! Very fair, 
indeed ! ” quoth Bob. 

Close by the elephants stood in 
line, munching dry grass. I went to 
say good-night to the Rajah, just to 
show there was no ill-feeling. He 
looked gigantic in the moonlight, and 
the sight of his huge foot, as he 
stamped occasionally, made me shud- 
der when I recollected how narrow 
an escape I had had that morning 
from finding myself underneath it. 




Cbaseb at a paper Cbase. 


DON’T think he means 
business ! ” 

‘‘ And the other does ? ” 
The speakers were two 
pretty women, clad, one in 
a light tweed, and the 
other in a white drill habit, such, as 
are the most workmanlike wear when 
the hot weather is coming on in 
India. 

The last speaker, Mabel Ashmere, 
sat dejectedly on the side of a little 
camp bed in a huge white-washed 
Indian bedroom, twisting a note in 
her slim fingers, and sighed as she 
spoke. 

I wish I knew what to do,” she 
added. 

Think of your new stepmother,” 



CHASED AT A PAPER CHASE. 25 


said her companion, standing in front 
of the looking-glass, and taking off 
her large white pith hat and its wrap- 
ping of gauze veil. 

I know — I always am thinking of 
her,” responded Mabel more gloom- 
ily. “It isn’t only that she’s such 
bad form ” 

“ And has so disgracefully hooked 

your poor father ” 

“ Or that everyone seems to have 
some story against her, in every sta- 
tion in the country ” 

“ Or that she hates you, and is 

jealous of you-^ ” 

“It’s just all that put together !” 
ejaculated Mabel, flicking the dust 
off her riding boot, for it was getting 
very dusty now — the end of February. 
“ I wish I knew what to do ! ” 

“And I wish I knew what to ad- 
vise,” responded Mrs. Murray. “I 
have heard that if you love one man 
and like another, after five years of 
marriage you arrive at the same state 
of affection with either — doesn’t 
last you know. But then I’m not 
speaking from personal experience,” 
she added, with a little smile. 

“ But I don’t like Mr. Cramwell I ” 
objected Mabel. 


26 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


And you do love Captain Carle- 
ton !” laughed Mrs. Murray. ‘‘But 
I must go. I see the ayah bringing 
in baby and Bunny from their walk. 
It’s getting late ; Bob will be back 
from parade directly. I must go and 
interview the khafisamah about din- 
ner. Don’t forget to answer that 
note.” 

No fear. The little sheet of paper 
lay like a lump of lead on Mabel’s 
mind. Yet it was worded innocently 
enough : 

Dear Miss Ashmere : . 

Of course you are coming to the paper 
chase this afternoon. The meet is at the 
Iron Bridge. May I call for you at 3.30 and 
drive you down in my trap? Yours very 
sincerely, Leslie Cramwell. 

India is the land of notes, though 
singing birds are never heard there. 
But of a dirty paper currency, and 
of endless chit^ or letters, flying about 
from one house to the other, owing 
to the servant’s inability to deliver a 
message correctly, there is no end. 
Mabel felt much hung upon the xhit 
in her hand now. For the hundredth 
time she went over the whole affair 
in her mind. 


CHASED AT A PAPER CHASE. 27 


I don’t know how men propose, 
out of novels ! Yet I’m sure, I can’t 
help being sure, that Captain Carle- 
ton was very near it that evening in 
the veranda at the Artillery dance. 
His eyes told me so,” she said to 
herself, a faint flush spreading over 
her cheek, somewhat delicate-look- 
ing, thanks to the Indian climate. 

But why did he stop short, then ? ” 
she argued from the other side. 
‘‘ He didn’t mean anything. He 
never did. He was only flirting ! ” 
And the color faded away, and left 
her face paler than before. 

And this man, this Cramwell, 
this ‘ competition wallah,’ undrilled, 
yellow, unsmart ? You know very 
well you can’t keep him in hand an- 
other moment, if you find yourself 
alone with him ! ” she went on to 
herself. “ He will want an answer. 
What are you-going to do ? Go back 
to your father — to find that woman 
installed in your mother’s place ? I’d 
sooner become a Zenana mission- 
aress ! ” exclaimed IMiss Ashmere 
out loud, tossing her pith helmet and 
her gloves across the room. 

At that moment the hideous face 


28 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


of the ayah peeped in through the 
portiere. 

“ The sahib has returned ; break- 
fast is making ready ; wiil not your 
highness change your dress ? ” 

An hour or so later one of Major 
Murray’s servants received a note, 
bearing Mabel’s monogram, with in- 
junctions to deliver it to the “stunt 
sahib (otherwise assistant-magis- 
trate) down in the Civil Lines. It 
was a very meek little note, but it 
meant a good deal. 

Dear Mr. Cramwell : 

Thank you very much. I will be ready at 
3.30. Yours sincerely, 

Mabel Ashmere. 

Thrusting the fateful scrap of 
paper into the folds of his turban for 
better security, and drawing his white 
cotton jacket over his bare shoulders, 
and putting his feet into curved-toed 
slippers, Mohun arose leisurely from 
the corner of his special horse’s stall, 
where he was discussing a hookah, 
and, possibly, further peculations in 
forage, with a fellow groom, and 
sallied out down the white, glary, 
dusty road. 


CHASED AT A PAPER CMASE. 29 


It was English mail morning. . 
^The paper of the- day before had an- 
nounced to all Northern India that 
the weekly mail steamer had been 
signalled off Bombay, and a special 
train had shot out the Dustypore bag 
that morning. The various regi- 
mental orderlies had been down to 
the post office, and were returning to 
their respective barracks with their 
spoil. 

Captain Carleton had finished 
breakfast at the mess, and returned 
to tub and dress in mufti at his own 
bungalow across the road. It was 
an off day ; no more duty ; he could 
at once attire himself in the check 
cotton coat and breeches, and the 
yellow leather boots, which form the 
correct riding costume at that season, 
and so avoid another dressing till 
dinner-time. Much changing of 
clothes is a weariness to the flesh 
with the British officer in India, but 
an inevitable one. 

His khitmuighar^ or table servant, 
received his master’s budget of letters 
from the mess sergeant, and carried 
them over to the bungalow. He 
found Carleton in his bath-room, en- 
joying a warm bath in a huge cut 


30 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 

down cask, while the peripatetic bar- 
ber officiated upon his chin and 
cheeks. 

At last ! ” he ejaculated with a 
sigh of satisfaction as he glanced 
through his letters, and after mak- 
ing several bad shots at some con- 
taining bills and dunning letters, tore 
open that which he was seeking. 
This was how it ran : 

My Dear Boy : Your letter has taken 
me very much by surprise, though I don’t 
know why it should. You are old enough to 
know your own mind and what you are about. 
The photo you send is a very sweet-looking 
one, though, of course, we could have wished 
you had chosen some girl we know, and 
should have liked a little money. However, 
you may be sure that your mother and myself 
wish only for your own happiness. I think 
you have acted very straightforwardly in not 
entangling yourself till you knew what I 
would do for you. Things are very tight 
now. I have had to reduce the rents 20 per 
cent, again this Lady Day. I think you 
ought to try and manage on ;^200 a year in 
addition to what I allow you already, at all 
events while the regiment is in India, and you 
are getting good pay. Your mother and 
sisters, who are much excited, are writing you 
reams, so I will only say God bless you ! 
From your affectionate father, 

Joseph Carleton. 


CHASED AT A PAPER CHASE. 3! 


‘‘ Good old dad ! mentally ejacu- 
lated the son. “ I knew he’d come 
down like a brick. And now to try 
my luck this very afternoon ! ” 

At 4 p. M. the rays of the sun 
still poured down with a good deal 
of fervor upon the heads of the 
crowd collected at the Iron Bridge. 
The lunatics, in the pogel khana or 
fools’ house across the road, grinned 
out from behind the wooden cages 
in which they were confined, on the un- 
wonted excitement. Poor wretches ! 
The only break in their monotonous 
life was the daily advent of their 
friends with their food, for Govern- 
ment in India does not maintain the 
idiots. Slow, creaking bullock carts, 
heavily laden, and proceeding city- 
wards, drew aside into the dust, for 
a heterogeneous mass of dogcarts, 
bamboo traps, buggies, and mail 
phaetons crowded in the road. All 
Dustypore was gathered at the meet, 
ere it went for its afternoon drive up 
and down the Mall. Every regiment 
in the garrison was represented, and 
of civilians there were not a few. 
There was a great descending from 
vehicles, and ascending of quad- 
rupeds. 


32 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


Cramwell in his bamboo dogcart. 
Mabel Ashmere at his side, drove up 
late. The groom, who had been 
squatting in the netting behind, 
sprang out to hold the horse, but ere 
he got down himself, Cramwell turned 
to his companion. 

Won’t you give me one word ? ” 
he asked, pathetically. 

Mabel’s face turned a shade paler 
as she turned away her head and 
murmured incoherently. 

Mr. Cramwell — you’ve taken me 
by surprise — and — this is no 
time ” 

I will ride home with you when 
it’s all over,” he persisted. “ Give 
me your answer then ! ” 

Now, Miss Ashmere,” cried 
Major Murray, coming up. “ I’ve just 
put my wife up, and your pony is 
ready.” 

Mabel picked her way through 
the dust to where her mount was 
waiting. Beside it stood Captain 
Carleton. 

May I put you up he asked. 

She hesitated a second, then she 
turned to the other, who had fol- 
lowed her. 

Oh ! Mr. Cramwell, how stupid 


CHASED AT A PAPER CHASE. 33 


of me ! I’ve left my whip in the cart. 
Do you mind ? ” 

Of course he did, very much, but 
he dared not say so. On his way 
back he passed Major Murray, in- 
tently engaged on getting on his 
horse, a matter of on small difficulty. 
Two grooms were clinging, half 
frightened, to the head of the animal, 
a squealing, gray countrybred, blind- 
folded for the moment by a cloth 
thrown over his face. Even as it 
was he was lashing out viciously, 
and resenting any attempt to mount 
him. The major, one foot half in 
the stirrup, was hopping ludicrously 
about after him, his eye on the 
beast’s heels. 

“ Hullo ! ” said Cramwell. Go- 
ing to ride Shaitan ? ” 

The gray was well known in 
Dustypore for his vicious character 
as a man-eater. 

Got nothing else to-day ! Ah ! 
yer would — would yer ! ” replied the 
major. 

When Cramwell returned with the 
whip, Mabel was already up, and 
Carleton arranging her foot in the 
stirrup. 

“ I see Major Murray’s on that 


34 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


brute Shaitan,” remarked Cramwell, 
sulkily. 

And will pound us all if he can 
stick to him,” laughed Mabel. ‘‘ But 
if they part company he had better 
make for the nearest tree, or Shaitan 
will make mincemeat of him ! ” 

Do you remember how he 
nabbed a bit out of Mr. Robinson’s 
mess-jacket that night he put him 
off going round his guards ? ” Mrs. 
Murray remarked to Carleton. 

He’s a perfect fiend,” the latter 
rejoined, but a bad ’un to beat I ” 
Jack Mitford, of the 12th Cuiras- 
siers, was master of the ceremonies 
as usual. He had laid the paper 
that morning, and he led them over 
a pretty stiff course. This was 
mainly for the edification of Smith 
and Jones, two newly joined cuiras- 
siers, who were being taught to ride. 
No one ever quite knew how often 
they came off that paper chase, but 
the sun-baked ground was like iron, 
and they both went tender for days 
afterward. 

The further side of the river be- 
yond the Iron Bridge was all laid 
out in cantonments before that 
dreadful May in ’57, traces of which, 


CHASED AT A PAPER CHASE. 35 


shattered and shell-ridden, still rise 
in the lovely gardens between the 
city and the stream, so that there 
were plenty of inclosures left, gar- 
dens or orchards, fenced in with 
high banks. Then among the poppy 
fields there were watercourses handy, 
and further, mango groves to be rid- 
den through, guava orchards, with 
low gnarled boughs to be crashed 
under, and, here and there. Jack 
Mitford had gone to the expense of 
a rail or two. 

It was one of these that brought 
Shaitan to grief. He was clever 
enough as^a rule, but he rushed too 
much for timber. The Indian coun- 
trybred does not understand it. 
Shaitan lit on his head, and Major 
Murray on his. Both picked them- 
selves up unhurt, and the brute, with 
a squeal, made straight for Murray, 
rearing and fighting with his fore-legs. 
The major hastened to put the rail 
between them. 

Then Cramwell came up on his 
little stud-bred mare. Till it was 
too late he was unaware that Shaitan 
was loose. No one would venture 
near the animal, even in the stable, 
except his own particular groom, 


36 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


and that individual was at that mo- 
ment reposing in the bazaar two 
miles off, on his way back to the 
bungalow. 

But the mare popped over the rail, 
and, in an instant, Shaitan’s atten- 
tion was distracted from his dis- 
mounted rider. He went for Cram- 
well on the mare. Cramwell grasped 
the situation, and rode for his life. 
Shaitan followed, squealing fiend- 
ishly. He was a bad ’un to beat, as 
Carleton had justly observed, and 
he gained on the mare. 

A panic seized the field when it 
was rumored that Shaitan was loose. 
Those in front pressed forward, and 
those behind held back, and watched 
the chase of Cramwell. Among 
these latter were Mrs. Murray and 
Mabel Ashmere, Carleton close to 
them. 

Delight is a poor word with which 
to describe the young lady’s feelings, 
as she watched the chiveying of her 
lover. She laughed out loud as the 
horse made plunges at the mare and 
grabs at her rider’s legs, while the 
latter tried vainly to beat him off 
with his hunting crop. The climax 
was reached when the unfortunate 


CHASED AT A PAPER CHASE. 37 


civilian, in terror of Shaitan’s teeth 
and heels, flung himself out of the 
saddle and sought safety in the 
dirty mud hut of a native village on 
the verge of the plain. Here he was 
lost to sight, and the animals kept 
up the chase alone. 

Come along. Miss Ashmere,’' 
cried Carleton. We’re not in our 
usual places. Jack Mitford will 
think we’ve all broken our necks. 
Let’s hurry up.” 

They came in at the finish with 
the ruck, including Smith and Jones; 
but neither seemed to care much. 
They rode home together. 

After mess that evening Carleton 
came across to the Murrays’ bunga- 
low. Was Mabel expecting him ? 
She was waiting for him in the ver- 
anda. 

‘‘ Reggy,” she said with an arch 
smile, laying her hand on Carleton’s 
arm, ‘‘ they have brought Shaitan 
home. Come down to the stables 
and talk to him ; you don’t know 
how much we have to thank him for.” 

They walked down together 
through the moonlight, and startled 
the grooms in the veranda of the 
stables, sleeping, after the unprin- 


38 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


cipled manner of their kind, rolled in 
the spare rugs of their charges. 

Good old Shaitan ! Thank you so 
much ; you managed it beautifully.” 

Perhaps Shaitan understood, for 
he actually let her stroke the tip of 
his nose without attempting to bite. 




H pioue jfrau^. 


VERYONE in the Royal 
Regiment” knew Driver 
Blayre and Gunner Blayre, 
at least by repute. They 
were both so exactly alike, 
this pair of brothers, that 
those who knew one, meeting the 
other, forthwith annexed his acquain- 
tance too. Both were good fellows, 
and good sportsmen. Of the two. 
Driver Blayre (Ben) was perhaps the 
the better fellow of the two, and 
Gunner Blayre (Bob) the smarter 
and the best rider. Both were neat, 
dapper, well-groomed men, credits to 
.the corps, whether fate caused them 
to fall ” to the depths of a garrison 
battery, or even to a mule or cow ” 
battery, or bestowed upon them the 
coveted jacket,” which every 



40 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


gunner one meets always seems to 
be just on the verge of getting, or 
aspiring to in the future. And yet 
men laugh at women for being fond 
of frocks ! 

Driver Blayre, the elder by a year, 
was less attractive, perhaps, than his 
brother, though his character was 
more sterling. At the time when 
our story opens he was captain of 
an elephant battery somewhere down 
in Madras. It was not a brilliant 
berth, but the Blayres were proverb- 
ially hard up. Then, too, he had 
had a long spell of service at home, 
which does not suit financially weak 
constitutions, and Driver Blayre was 
glad of the extra pay which the 
elephant battery brought. 

Idleminster is a very favorite ar- 
tillery station. But it means money. 
The battery is all alone in its glory 
there, the nearest approach to sol- 
diers being the waifs and strays of 
the territory depot twenty-five miles 
off. So the gunners are made much 
of in county society. The neighbor- 
hood is very good round Idlemin- 
ster ; plenty of large country houses, 
and, what is more, they are lived 
in ; plenty of shooting and dancing, 


A PiOtiS FRAUD. 


4i 


and men are scarce. There is good 
hunting too, and neither Blayre ever 
could resist that. So Driver Blayre 
had hunted a great deal, keeping 
more horses than he could afford, 
and raced a little, for he was a light- 
weight and good rider, and in re- 
quest. He had a very good time 
altogether, and, in a way, not entire- 
ly connected with horses. Ethel 
Merrow was the best lady-rider in 
all Idleshire country — a tall, hand- 
some girl, wretched at home with a 
stepmother whom she hated, and in 
her element in the hunting-field. 
There had been chats at the covert- 
side, long rides home together in the 
gathering gloom along the muddy 
lanes when the day’s gallops were 
over, dances at the Hunt Ball, cozy 
teas on Sundays at the house of the 
battery major’s wife, after afternoon 
service at the cathedral, which is a 
great social function in Idleminster. 
There had been all this, and some 
people said more. Rumor ran that 
Driver Blayre had proposed and had 
been declined. 

The truth of the matter was that 
he had done no such thing. He 
was more in love with Ethel Mer- 


42 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


row than he himself fancied at the 
time. But circumstances made it 
out of the question. There had 
come Jews,- duns, and all sorts of 
money worries, culminating in the 
nolens volens exchange out to India 
and the elephant battery. Driver 
Blayre was far too straightforward a 
fellow to ask a penniless girl to share 
his heart and his debts. There is 
rhore of that sort of thing in the 
world than meets the eye. 

But all this story was three years 
old now. In the meantime. Gunner 
Blayre’s star was in the ascendant. 
His jacket ” had fallen to him in 
pleasant places. The ‘^chestnut” 
battery at Pugreepore was intensely 
smart ; the polo and pig-sticking in 
that favorite station without re- 
proach. While his brother moped 
with his elephants at Guramabad, 
afar from the world, and little af- 
fecting what society there was. Gun- 
ner Blayre, a glory of gold lace, 
became a social and sporting star in 
the Pugreepore firmament. 

But Dame Fortune gave just the 
wee-est little turn to her wheel, just 
to show him he was but mortal after 
all. He had a crumpler ” riding in 


A PIOUS FRAUD. 


43 


the Pugreepore Civil Service Cup. 
The course was like bricks, and 
Gunner Blayre broke his collar- 
bone. He had been over-training a 
bit, and did not get over the acci- 
dent quickly. The hot weather 
came on apace, and down he went 
with a sharp go of fever. The doc- 
tor ordered two months’ leave to the 
hills. 

Gunner Blayre betook himself, his 
bearer, a white terrier, and a couple 
of polo ponies, to Nynee Tal, to the 
Mayo Hotel, the bachelors’ haunt, 
on the shores of the lovely lover’s 
lake, which, deep and green, fills up 
the basin of an extinct volcano some 
six thousand feet above the sea. 
The mountain Capua for six sum- 
mer months of the Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor and a galaxy of officials, the 
play-place of military grass widows 
and subalterns on leave, Nynee Tal, 
small and remote as it is, is by no 
means beneath the notice of a cer- 
tain individual who is commonly 
credited with finding nefarious em- 
ployment for idle hands. On Gun- 
ner Blayre, smart and interesting 
through illness, he had his eye. I 
am not innuendoing the poker at the 


44 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


club, or the snug baccarat at the 
Mayo Hotel. I refer to handsome 
Mrs. Marrinder. 

When you are two-and-twenty, 
with a neat figure, and good-looking, 
married to an uninteresting, though 
worthy, old colonel, years older than 
yourself, when you took, faute de 
mieux^ to get away from an uncon- 
genial home, is it to be wondered at 
if you find the ceaseless round of 
gayety of an Indian hill-station at- 
tractive, and the open devotion of a 
smart little gunner like Bob Blayre 
not unpleasing. Mrs. Marrinder 
and Gunner Blayre became insepa- 
rable — one of those couples you meet 
riding, very close together, down the 
cart-road in the moonlight, or in se- 
cluded spots behind the Rhododen- 
dron Hill, in winding mountain 
paths under the ilex boughs, or 
where the deodars look out toward 
the snows. You come across them 
in cozy nooks in the veranda 
overhanging the lake, while the 
band is playing waltzes in the As- 
sembly Rooms within ; you run 
against them canoodling on the 
lake in tiny craft at dusk. For such 
you reserve seats together at your 


A PIOUS FRAUD. 


45 


dinner-table, such you invite simul- 
taneously to your picnic up Chena, 
or down to Douglasdale. Only by 
a judicious assortment of such 
couples can you make your tab- 
leaux or theatricals go off satisfac- 
torily. Of course, it is very wrong, 
most reprehensible, this bow-wow '' 
system, a plague-spot in Anglo-In- 
dian society, part of the price we 
pay for our great dependency. But, 
at least, it is open and above-board. 
You see and know the worst. 
Whereas, in wider, fuller, busier 
England 

Enter Driver Blayre from the 
furnace-hell below into the modern 
Garden of Eden. It was at the 
sacred hour of gossip, when all the 
world is in the Assembly Rooms at 
twilight, pretending to read the 
English papers after the band has 
shut up, ere the grooms, tied to the 
ponies waiting in groups without, 
have lit up the lanterns to guide the 
homeward canter. She looked very 
smart and bewitching in her habit, 
but the laugh faded from her face, 
and it got very red, as Gunner Blayre 
looked up from XhQ* Punch they 


46 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


were reading together, and, seeing 
the Driver enter, introduced — My 
brother.” 

‘‘ No need. Bob ; we’re — old 
friends, aren’t we, Miss Merrow ? ” 

‘‘ Mrs. Marrinder,” put in the lady, 
and then it was the Driver’s turn to 
flush. 

For the first week or so he bided 
his time and said nothing ; but at 
last he could stand it no longer. He 
spoke his mind to the Gunner as he 
had not done since the long-ago days 
f when they were boys at Harrow. 
He was no saint, was the Driver ; 
but it was Ethel Merrow whom — yes, 
he knew now how he had loved her 
that winter at Idleminster. 

The brothers were smoking in the 
Gunner’s rooms at the Mayo, lying 
far back in leviathan chairs, their 
legs outstretched on the broad arms 
intended for that purpose. The 
Driver, who had made a clean breast 
of the Idleminster story, and was 
painfully aware how Mrs. Marrinder 
had cold-shouldered him during the 
past week, fully expected his brother 
to turn round upon him with a sar- 
castic taunt of sour grapes. 


A PIOUS FRAUD. 


47 


To his astonishment the Gunner 
tossed away the end of his cigar 
defiantly, and burst out : 

Look here, old chap, Fm neither 
a fool nor a blackguard, whatever 
you may think ! I’ve carried on 
before, same as most men, you know. 
But this is altogether a different 
matter. I love Ethel Marrinder, and 
she loves me. Her life with that old 
fossil is just wretched. She never 
really cared for him — was forced to 
marry him by her stepmother — she 
dreads going back to him. I lov^ 
her too well not to try and save her 
from that fate — something must, and 
shall, be done ! ” 

The Driver was dumbfounded. He 
groaned aloud. 

“ Good God ! Ethel ! That it 
should be Ethel ! ” 

Then he added, rising from his 
chair : 

Well, at all events, you’ve been 
frank with me, but I’ll respect your 
confidence. But it seems to me 
you’re in the deuce of a hat. Don’t 
expect me^ of all men, to help you out 
of it ! ” 

The next day he took himself out 
on a ten days’ fishing trip to Beemtal. 


48 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


He could not bear to see the two 
about together. But Ethel’s face 
haunted him from the placid green 
waters of the lake as he lured the 
wily marseer. 

He returned to find Nynee Tal all 
agog with the excitement of the Lieu- 
tenant-Governor’s ball that night, and 
a card for the same awaiting him. 
As he sat smoking in the club ve- 
randa, pondering whether he should 
go, and feeling, somehow, very old 
and blasd^ he saw his brother and 
Mrs. Marrinder canter past the 
club windows. Within, some gilded 
370uths, dawdling over a late break- 
fast and oblivious of his vicinity, 
made some remarks over the fleeting 
vision. They are not all fit for 
publication ; but from them Driver 
Blayre gathered that the lady’s hus- 
band was expected at Nynee Tal 
next day, ordered up sick from the 
plains, and that complications might 
be expected in the little idyl. 

The Driver rose up, gnashing his 
teeth, and with yet another violent 
effort to tear Ethel from his mem- 
ory — Ethel, the worthless, the fallen, 
the — the — still loved one — he went 
out for a solitary ride. 


A PIOUS FRAUD. 


49 


For the last half-hour the glimmer- 
ing lanterns, dotting like fireflies the 
forest-clad hillsides round the lake, 
have been converging on to the 
broad terrace on which Government 
House is perched. A block of ponies 
and jampans crowd the portico, and 
a scarlet and gold A.D.C. is presenting 
the arriving guests to their Honors 
at the ballroom door. Driver Blayre 
wanders through the rooms like a 
restless ghost. “Dance? No, thanks, 
don’t know people ! Given it up ! ” 
and so on. He catches a glimpse of 
Ethel Marrinder’s white neck and 
shoulders revolving in the mazes of 
the waltz in proximity to his brother’s 
closely-cropped fair hair and little 
mustache. Somehow or other, his 
thoughts fly back to a certain Hunt 
ball when he, too, felt her breath 
upon his cheek. But that seems 
years ago, and in another world. 

He is roused from his reverie by a 
touch on his arm as he leans against 
the doorway. A fresh dance is be- 
ginning, and bright eyes look up into 
his. 

“ I’m not going to be cut for my 
dance. Captain Blayre ! ” says a fair 
unknown. 


50 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


The driver gazes at her bewildered. 
Then it dawns upon him. 

beg your pardon — I’ve not the 
pleasure. I think you are mistak- 
ing me for my brother. I’m Driver 
Blayre.” 

The fair unknown subsides into 
apologies and vanishes. The Driver 
departs to the peg table to refresh, 
and then for a cigarette into the ve- 
randa. 

The silence of the midnight world 
without, with a moon flooding the 
folds of mountains with silvery shim- 
mer, and the lake below lying in 
depths of inky shadow, contrasts 
with the hum of music and voices 
within. It is balmy, too, and the 
Driver paces the terrace slowly, 
smoking. Only the stamp of a 
pony’s hoof below, where the grooms 
and the jampan-bearers congregate, 
breaks the stillness, or the distant 
bay of a pariah dog in the bazaar. 
But suddenly he hears voices close 
by, behind a shrub. Some servants, 
probably, or — but no, they speak 
English. The Driver stops short 
and listens. 

Three o’clock, then, darling, at 
the corner by the church — it’s quiet 


A PIOUS FRAUD. 


51 


there. We shall be safe down at 
Kaladoongee by daybreak, and he 
cannot be at Raneebagh till break- 
fast-time ! Oh ! my darling, to 

think by to-morrow ” 

Hush, Bob ! I heard someone.*’ 

‘‘I thought the bushes moved. 
Come, darling, let’s go and have 
some supper, and then go home ^nd 
dress ; we’ve a long journey before 
us.” 

A white dress and a brilliant uni- 
form flit together across the terrace 
in the moonlight to the veranda. 
But Driver Blayre stays rooted to 
the spot behind the Wellingtonia. 
How long he stays there he does not 
know. At last he rouses himself, 
passing his hand across his face like 
one waking from a dream. 

He goes back to the peg table 
again. As a rule, there is no more 
abstemious fellow in the mess than 
Driver Blayre. But he mixes him- 
self a stiff one. As he drinks it 
rapidly, a voice calls to him from the 
doorway. 

I say, Blayre.” 

‘‘Yes,” replies the Driver. 

“ Oh ! beg pardon, thought you 
were your brother,” is the reply. 


52 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


‘‘ The second time in one night,” 
muses the Driver to himself. “Ah ! 
an idea ! I’ll make it a third. By 
God, I will ! ” 

Three o’clock strikes on the gong 
in the Goorkha guardhouse. The 
ball is nearly over up aloft at Gov- 
ernment House ; a second supper, 
select and merry, is about to begin. 
But, at the corner where the path 
leads up to the church, all is very 
quiet, till a jampan, carried at a 
round trot by four men, with two 
spare ones jogging in the rear, comes 
swinging down from the hill above. 

As it reaches the corner, a figure 
on a pony comes out of the shadow 
of the deodars and rides up to the 
jampan. 

“ You are punctual to the moment. 
Sit well back, the moon is set, and, 
if we meet anyone, we shall not be 
recognized.” 

“ Oh, Bob, I feel so nervous ! ” 

“ Courage, dearest, courage. All 
will yet be well.” 

He reaches a hand into the jam- 
pan, and she presses it ; but it is icy 
cold. Then he draws the head man 
of the jampan aside, while the others 
are engaged shouldering their bur- 


A PIOUS FRAUD. 


53 


den. Into the coolie's horny palm 
he presses a handful of rupees, and 
whispers : 

‘‘ The Raneebagh road, and as 
quick as you can go ! " 

The occupant of the dandy buries 
herself in a corner under the hood, 
drawing her shawl over her face, and 
off they set through the darkness, 
the pony trotting behind. 

Down, down through the night — a 
narrow path zig-zagging down the 
mountain-side, through ravines, and 
round sharp, precipitous corners. 
On and on, but ever lower and lower. 
The air grows warmer as they jog 
along swiftly, the jampan-bearers 
grunting as they trot, and puffing as 
they relieve each other, the pony, 
who has to guide his steps carefully, 
some little way behind. Occasion- 
ally a jackal howls on the hillside, or 
a chikaw partridge clucks startled in 
the brushwood. In the branches 
overhead the crickets begin to whirr, 
for the air gets warmer as they de- 
scend — thousands of feet. 

Then the dawn breaks. The 
shadows of the trees and of the 
shoulders of the hills begin to stand 
out indistinctly. There comes a 


54 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


crowing of cocks as they pass native 
huts. The crisp, cool air of the 
Himalayas has vanished, and is re- 
placed by the sultry, oppressive at- 
mosphere of the plains in hot weather. 

In the veranda of the ddk-bunga- 
low at Raneebagh, standing on a 
little grassy knoll where a wide 
valley meets the plains, Ethel Mar- 
rinder’s jampan is set down, and the 
hood thrown back. 

In the gray twilight of the early 
morning her escort jumps off his 
pony and advances to assist her to 
alight. She looks up at him as he 
bends over her, and falls back with 
a faint scream. 

Not Bob ? ” 

No ; Ben ! ” is the answer. The 
voice sounds strained and harsh. 

Ethel covers her face with her 
hands and moans, Oh ! I am lost ! 
I am lost ! ” 

But a strong arm encircles her 
and helps her out. The Driver lifts 
the mat hanging before the door of 
the nearest room, and, leading her 
in, places her in a chair. She bows 
herself and weeps silently. But the 
Driver turns away and stands look- 
ingout at the door, up the valley, from 


A PIOUS FRAUD. 


55 


which, every moment, the mists of 
daybreak roll away. He dare not 
look at her, but he speaks. 

“ Not lost, Ethel. Saved ! I, too, 
love you — I may say it now — have 
always loved you, and, I think, love 
you best, for I have saved you from 
yourself ! No, don’t speak. I don’t 
ask you to thank me — you probably 
hate me — but, perhaps, some day, 
you will. Good-by. My mission is 
over. I see Colonel Marrinder 
arriving in a dak-gharry"' 

He passed out. A man was de^ 
scending from the vehicle, which 
had just driven up and stopped at 
the terminus of the carriage road, a 
kind of bathing-machine on wheels, 
drawn by two decrepit ponies at a 
hand-gallop. 

“ Good-morning !” said the Driver. 
‘‘Glad we have just hit it off! I 
have escorted Mrs. Marrinder down 
the hill to meet you. No, thank 
you, I won’t stay to breakfast ; must 
be off before it gets hot,” and, 
mounting the fresh pony he had 
ordered, the Driver disappeared. 

It was two years ere the brothers 
met again, and there had been no 
communication between them mean- 


56 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


time. The Gazette^ however, told 
the Driver that the Gunner was 
posted to a field battery at home, 
and the papers likewise informed 
him that Colonel Marrinder had 
died of liver complaint some months 
after that morning at Raneebagh. 

The Driver’s spell of Indian service 
was over also, for the time. The 
morning after he landed at Ports- 
mouth, as he sat at breakfast at the 
Junior, he got a letter from the 
Gunner : 

“ are going to be married. 
Will you make friends and come to 
the wedding ? — Bob.” 

But the answer the Gunner got 
was equally laconic : 

“ I was never the enemy of either of 
you. My best, heartiest wishes. But 
don’t ask me to come. — Ben.” 

But the evening of the wedding- 
day he received a telegram signed 
‘‘Ethel Blayre”: “Thanks, athou- 
sand times thanks.” 



a ifatal (Blft 


ELFORT PRAYTE, the 
most successful barrister 
of the High Court of 
Dustipore, East-by-West 
Provinces, India, had a 
very good time of it, when, 
after many years of arduous toil in 
pocketing the fees of litigious natives, 
he ran home on a few months’ holiday. 
It was pleasant to feel his feet once 
more upon his native strand, exhilar- 
ating to find his contemporaries still 
briefless or struggling. It almost 
made him forget what the atmosphere 
of the cutcherry at Dustipore was like, 
at noontide in the merry month of 
May. 

Maidens and their mammas smiled 
upon Melfort Prayte. The Suez 
Canal has reversed the order of things 



58 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


in the Indian marriage market. Men 
come home for their wives now. They 
are no longer satisfied with the article 
imported for Indian consumption, 
and which no more improves under 
climatic and social influences than do 
the tinned provisions in an upcoun- 
try Parsee’s store. 

Being an exceedingly clever young 
man, — for he was still young, — Mel- 
fort Prayte took care not to be at all 
above laying himself out to loaf and 
frivol, as occasion demanded. He 
was particular to remember all the 
good stories he had heard, and care- 
ful to get up the latest society crazes, 
such as palmistry, graphology, animal 
magnetism, and so on. Accordingly, 
when, at the close of a very cheerful 
season in London, he glanced over 
his invitations, he found he could 
easily have mapped out the next six 
months in staying about in other 
people’s houses. 

His time was running short, 
though, and India was looming un- 
pleasantly near again, when he found 
himself at Paddington, one October 
afternoon, on his way down to the 
Blake-Baskertons’ for a week’s 
pheasant-shooting. 


A FATAL GIFT. 


59 


The Blake-Baskertons had a big 
house-party and a big shoot on. 
Melfort Prayte had dined with them 
a good deal in town. The eldest 
daughter, a clever girl, had evinced 
much interest in India, and was 
eager for information respecting the 
silver currency, the future of the 
ryot and the purdah woman, and 
such-like light subjects. But Mel- 
fort Prayte was home for a holiday. 
A clever woman is sometimes very 
interesting to talk to, but she is not 
always what a clever man seeks in a 
wife. He wants a rest and a change 
— from himself. 

The women, in tea-gowns, were 
having tea in the big hall when 
Prayte drove up. The men had not 
yet come in from shooting, so, for a 
while, he was. monarch of all he sur- 
veyed. 

His hostess, after greeting him, 
handed him over to her daugh- 
ter at the tea-table, and sank 
back on to the deep sofa by the 
fire. 

‘^Will you excuse me, Mr. Prayte, 
and let Arabella give you some tea? 
I.ady Debars and I are settling a 
most important question before the 


6o IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


post goes out in half an hour. I am 
getting a new cook.” 

Indeed,” said Prayte, sitting 
down with his tea-cup on a stool by 
her side. What a heap of letters ! 
Can I help you ? ” 

‘^You clever men think you can 
do anything,” she laughed. “ This 
is a 7nost important business. Mr. 
Blake-Baskerton is most particular. 
Let me see. Lady Debars ; this is 
that Mrs. Savory’s letter, who is so 
highly recommended, isn’t it ? ” 

“ May I look at it ? I’m some- 
thing of a judge of handwriting, you 
know,” put in Melfort Prayte. 

‘‘ It certainly reads very well,” he 
went on, glancing at the highly- 
glazed paper, with the lines sloping 
dubiously. ‘‘ She must be a perfect 
cordon hleu^ and her references sound 

undeniable ; but ” 

^‘But what?” asked both ladies 
at once. 

Only that it strikes me she is 
lying throughout, and that her 
honesty is doubtful. Miss Blake- 
Baskerton, may my long journey en- 
title me to another cup of tea ? ” 
There was quite a little flutter in 
the dovecot. Everyone, glad of a 


A FATAL GIFT. 


6l 


little amusement, produced hand- 
writings on which they begged 
Prayte to sit in judgment. 

‘‘ So very clever ! So true ! Just 
what she really is, you know,” said 
one. 

‘^Exactly my opinion of him,” 
said another. 

Perfect magic, I declare,” said a 
third. ‘^If he knew her quite well 
he couldn’t have hit off her char- 
acter better. I always thought she 
really had an awful temper.” 

And so on, till it was time to go 
to dress for dinner. 

“Good idea having Melfort Prayte 
down,, wasn’t it, dear?” shouted 
Mrs. Blake-Baskerton from her toilet 
table, after her maid had departed, 
to her better half, tubbing vigorously 
after shooting, in his dressing room. 

“Yes! Ah! What! Good shot 
enough, I daresay. But these 
Indian fellows, with their big game, 
often turn up their noses ” 

“Tut! tut! I didn’t mean about 
the shooting. I meant he’ll be such 
a godsend in the house ! The 
Slumbertons and old Lady Debars 
are so heavy. And, then, I can quite 
see he appreciates Arabella ; she is 


62 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


SO really superior, so intellectual, 
just the kind of wife for a rising 
man like him ! 

And, overflowing with compla- 
cency, Mrs. Blake-Baskerton swept 
downstairs, just in time to welcome 
the old vicar and his niece, the only 
outside guests, and who had trotted 
up the avenue in goloshes. 

Melfort Prayte did his duty bravely 
at dinner. Even old Lady Debars 
laughed over some of hie stories. 
Suddenly he became awaro that, 
whenever he got on the subject of 
India a very sweet pair of eyes were 
riveted upon him from across the 
flowers. Their owner was a girl, so 
young that she failed to appreciate 
Mrs. Blake-Baskerton’s menUy or to 
attempt to contribute her share to 
the conversation. Nevertheless, 
Melfort Prayte said to himself that 
she was as much of an ornament to 
the table as the exotics in the Dres- 
den china that adorned the center. 

They played games after dinner. 
Miss Blake-Baskerton monopolized 
Prayte, and he never got a chance of 
being introduced to the owner of the 
eyes. 

He came up with her next evening, 


A FATAL GIFT. 


<^3 


however, in a twilight lane, as he was 
walking home from shooting with 
the son of the house. The latter 
began to talk to her, but she turned 
to Prayte eagerly : 

‘‘ You were talking about India 
last night at dinner. Do you know 
Guramabad ? ” 

“ It is about as far off from Dusti- 
pore, where I live, as we are now 
from Madrid. I never was there,” re- 
joined Prayte. 

Her face fell, and the pretty flush 
died out of it. 

“ What a dreadfully big country ! 
I’m sorry ! I wanted to hear about 
it, for I’m going there next 
month.” 

And as the two men walked beside 
her down the muddy lane, over the 
fallen leaves, she prattled on naively 
about herself, and of how she was 
going out to her mother and step- 
father. Melfort Prayte drew her out 
for the pleasure of watching her face 
sparkle. A little unsophisticated 
country girl like this was a new sen- 
sation to him. 

But he did not meet her again 
during his stay. On off-days from 
the shooting. Miss Blake-Bask'erton 


64 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


drove him about in her pony-cart, 
and they talked “subjects.” 

On Sunday, however, his hostess 
marshaled her guests to church. It 
was part of her idea of a country 
chatelaine s duty. Melfort Prayte 
writhed inwardly over the infliction. 
Church. going was not much in his 
line. Civilians get out of the way 
of it in India. The military men are 
driven to church in droves with the 
troops. 

But, for many years afterward, 
that quiet old village church, smelling 
moldly with the dust of departed 
squires, the sleepy old vicar mum- 
bling the familiar prayers, and the 
dim light from the narrow windows 
falling on the profile of the vicar’s 
niece as she sang in the choir, ling- 
ered in his memory like a soothing 
dream. 

At breakfast next morning, just 
before the dog-cart came round to 
carry him off to the station, he found 
his host radiant over a letter his wife 
had just received. 

“ My dear fellow, I owe you a debt 
of gratitude ! You have certainly 
lengthened, if not actually saved, my 
life!” 


A FATAL GIFT. 


65 


That cook, you know, Mr. 
Prayte,” explained Mrs. Blake-Bas- 
kerton. That Mrs. Savory. My 

sister has interviewed her for me in 
town, and taken her character. Well, 
it appears that her perquisites and 
her pilfering were beyond anything, 
and as for her cooking — she knew 
absolutely nothing ! ” 

Such an escape ! A merciful 
escape ! ” added her husband, rever- 
ently. 

Melfort Prayte got safe away from 
the Blake-Baskertons, and left Ara- 
bella gnashing her teeth. She mar- 
ried the following year a heavy neigh- 
bor addicted to shorthorns, and now 
is of the same mind as the eminent 
politician who advocates the Perish 
India ” theory. 

Melfort Prayte found his Indian 
mail awaiting him at his rooms in 
Duke Street, and realized with a sigh 
that he must hie him back to work. 

Hailing a prowling hansom, he 
betook himself to the P. & O. office 
in Cockspur Street, and looked at 
the sailings of the steamers and the 
list of passengers : 

SS. Kidgeree; for Bombay; Miss 
Eva Grey.” 


66 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


A vision of the little girl with the 
sweet eyes flew into his mind. 

“ Put me down for a port-side 
berth in Kidgeree^'' he said to the 
clerk. I will go by Brindisi and 
join it at Suez.” 

When the overland contingent, 
crowded with their baggage on to a 
big raft, slowly approached the Kid- 
geree as she lay in the Suez roads, 
Eva Grey was leaning over the ship’s 
side, sharing the interest the other 
London passengers took in the new- 
comers. 

When Melfort Prayte came on 
board, she came up to him at once 
with frank, outstretched hand. 

‘‘ I am so glad you are coming by 
this ship, Mr. Prayte. Fm so home- 
sick, and you seem like a whiff of 
home ! ” 

Even a hideous white pith helmet 
could not disfigure her. Melfort 
Prayte thought her eyes the color of 
the soft, shimmering, purple Sou- 
danese mountains rising across the 
glazy bay to the west. 

Prayte had, of course, gone through 
the fire years before. He had had 
his grandes passions for giddy grass 
widows in the hills, his cooler intel- 


A FATAL GIFT. 


^>7 


lectual friendships with kindred souls 
during the cold weather in the plains. 
He had dallied with English maidens 
during his holidays, and allowed them 
to imagine they were going to cap- 
ture him. Yet, somehow, the feeling 
which arose within him during the 
ten days the Kidgeree took between 
Suez and Bombay, with regard to 
Eva Grey, was different to any he 
had ever experienced before. She 
was so very young, so naive, and so 
pretty. Melfort Prayte found him- 
self watching her during sultry noon- 
tides under the awnings, or in the 
mysterious glamor of tropical moon- 
light nights when the wake of the 
Kidgeree was a mass of phosphor- 
escence, and wondering to himself if 
a fresh, innocent child like this would 
not be a rest woven into the life of a 
busy, toiling man always in touch 
with the seamy side of things. 

She had plenty to prattle to him 
about ; her old life in the quiet coun- 
try vicarage with her uncle, now 
closed forever — her father dead so 
many years before — her mother still 
young and very beautiful, she said, 
whom she was longing to see, whom 
she was preparing to adore, though 


68 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


she could hardly remember her at 
all — her rather elderly, stolid step- 
father, of whom she knew next to 
nothing. Then she was eager for 
information about the future Indian 
life. But, somehow, the idea of this 
fresh, half-opened little English daisy, 
plunged into the narrow, gossiping, 
shallow, frivolous life of an Indian 
station, flirted with by half the sub- 
alterns and all the junior civilians, 
jarred on Melfort Prayte. He told 
her for choice about native life, and 
described the beautiful scenery of 
the Himalayas, as he lay prone on a 
coil of ropes at the feet of her long 
chair. How the two richest natives of 
the Dustipore district, who were anx- 
iously awaiting this powerful advo- 
cate’s return, to offer him, each, a 
douceur oi many hundred rupees that * 
he should not accept a brief from 
either side, would have marveled to 
see him so absorbed in this child. 

He could hardly himself define 
what it was made him arrange, only 
the day before they reached Bombay, 
with Eva’s chaperon, to accompany 
the ladies up country as far as 
their ways lay together. Anyhow, it 
staved off the saying good-bye. 


A FATAL GIFT. 


09 


Most of the Kidgerees passengers 
put up at Watson’s Hotel, a huge 
American kind of caravansary. 
They sat in the broad veranda after 
breakfast, idling over the tempting 
wares that Cashmere shawl merchants 
and Lucknow silversmiths displayed 
on the floor before them, and reading 
the last European papers. Prayte 
had found a friend, Cis Sabretasche, 
A. D. C. to the General at Dustipore, 
just going home. Eva Grey was 
chatting with a man in the Derby- 
shire Drabs, and his bride, with whom 
she had fraternized during the voy- 
age. These latter were discussing 
an invitation they had received from 
a friend’s friend to stay on their way 
up country. 

“ It is a very nice letter,” mused 
the bride ; I wonder what sort of a 
person she is ? ” 

“ If you don’t mind showing me 
the letter, perhaps I can give you an 
idea,” suggested Melfort Prayte, from 
the depths of an enormous arm- 
chair. 

Nice woman, I should think,” 
said he, after perusing the epistle ; 

but a great talker, to judge by the 
long tail of her capital C’s, and no 


70 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


organization — she runs her words to- 
gether so.’' 

That’s just what the Smiths told 
us ; you can’t get a word in edgeways, 
they said. And I think she must be 
rather muddle-headed, for she asked 
us first to come on Friday, and now 
says she can’t have us till Saturday, 
as she is engaged on Friday.” 

Eva Grey opened her eyes wide. 

How awfully interesting ! And 
can you really tell what people are 
like from their writing ? ” 

‘‘ Let’s try him again,” suggested 
Dalton of the Drabs. “ Here’s a 
letter from a man I know intimately ; 
was at school with him.” 

“Very fond of classical poetry, I 
should say : his capital letters are all 
printing letters.” 

“ Right you are, he was a Dab at 
Greek and Latin.” 

“ And now, would you mind look- 
ing at this ? I am awfully anxious 
to know what the writer is like,” 
pleaded Eva. 

Prayte rose, threw away the end of 
his cigar, and bending over the little 
figure in the low chair, took the 
letter from her. 

He scanned it a moment or two : 


A FATAL GIFT. 


71 


them his face clouded. He passed it 
back to her, and turned away, saying 
in a constrained voice : 

‘‘ I’d rather not tell you anything 
about that. That’s the writing of a 
bad woman.” 

There was an awkward silence 
while you might count ten. Eva, 
the letter motionless in her hand, 
followed him with her eyes express- 
ing utter bewilderment. ‘Then she 
flushed very red, and rose and left 
the balcony. 

The others looked at each other as 
her white dress vanished round the 
corner. 

What on earth have I done ? ” 
asked Prayte, anxiously. 

The letter was from her mother,” 
said the little bride, in an awestruck 
voice. She was reading it to me 
not long ago.” 

‘‘ Her mother ! Good Heavens, 
Prayte, you have put your foot into 
it !” exclaimed Sabretasche, with a 
shrug. 

But who on earth’s her mother, 
then ; for if ever a hand showed ” 

“ Do you mean to say you don’t 
know? ” asked Sabretasche. “Why, 
man, after all these years of India, 


72 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


do you mean to say you’ve never 
heard" of Mrs. Churchhill, wife of 
Churchhill in the Native Infan- 
try ” 

“ The ‘ all-embracing mother 
church ? ’ Of course I have ! Curse 
it all, what an ass I have been ! ” 
muttered Prayte, angrily. 

“ The best-preserved woman in 
.India. Don’t you remetnber how 
Her Ex. had to put down her foot 
about her two seasons ago, at Simla, 
His Ex. was so gone over her ; only 
Lord George and the other A. D. C.’s 
stood her friends. Then, further 
back again, long ago, there was that 
little shooting-party got up in the 
Terai for royalty, when Mrs. Church- 
hill went on special invitation ! ” 

Melfort Prayte gnashed his teeth. 

I suppose the daughter knows 
nothing?” he asked. 

“How the deuce should she? 
Pretty girl — but nothing like her 
mother, though. Wonderful woman ! 
Little Jenkins, in the Gunners, went 
to utter grief this year at Naini, 
after she threw him over for Dabbs 
in the Secretariat — took to gam- 
bling — has had to leave the service. 
Wonderful woman ! ” and Sabre- 


A FATAL GIFT. 


n 


tasche lit another cigar medita- 
tively. 

Prayte rose and took himself off 
into his own room. He was too 
annoyed with himself to bear the 
chatter of the others. To think that 
he should have been thus the means 
of opening this innocent child’s eyes 
to her mother’s depravity — the 
mother she admired so much, to the 
meeting with whom she was looking 
forward so eagerly ! That he should 
thus inadvertently have seared this 
white young soul ! The thought 
made him mad. He cursed graphol- 
ogy and her sister arts, and de- 
voutly wished he had never dabbled 
in them. 

But the worst was yet to come. 
He saw no more of Miss Grey or 
her chaperon that day. In the even- 
ing a chilly note was brought him 
from the latter, saying that, as they 
were going to wait a day or two 
longer in Bombay than they had ex- 
pected, they would not trouble him 
for his escort up country. 

So the dream was over. But for 
its^abrupt ending it might, in another 
day or two, have become a reality. 

Prayte hurled himself into the' 


74 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


night •mail and was whisked off to 
Dustipore. There he found plenty 
of fat cases awaiting him ; both 
sides anxious to retain him. Yet he 
was not happy. 

That cold-weather season at Dus- 
tipore women discussed Melfort 
Prayte with some bitterness. 

“ He used to be so nice before he 
went home last spring. But men do 
get so spoilt, their heads so turned 
in England, because there are so 
few of them ; he hardly will speak 
to a lady now ! " 

A good many months later, when 
he went down to Lucknow for the 
race week, he came across Eva Grey 
at a ball at the Chutter Munzil. She 
was looking very lovely and very 
happy, chatting away to a good- 
looking young gunner. Prayte, on 
inquiry, found she was engaged to 
him, and going to be married very 
shortly. 

Prayte suddenly felt that he hated 
balls and similar stupidities, and 
went and had a strong whisky-and- 
soda at the peg table with his inform- 
ant. 

Returning, and meditating taking 
his departure, he felt so bored, sud- 


A FATAL GIFT. 


7S 


denly round a corner he came upon 
Eva enlarging gayly to an admiring 
group about her wedding presents. 

“ Isn’t this a lovely bracelet ? Mr. 
Dabbs, the Secretary, has sent me 
this ; he was an old friend of my 
father’s, he says. And do look at 
this, isn’t it too beautiful ? Fancy, 
the Viceroy sent me that ! Only 
fancy ! Mother saw so much of 
Lady Wrenthamdale when she was 
at Simla two years ago, you know.’' 

Then she turned suddenly and 
perceived Prayte, got very red, and 
cut him dead. 

He saw the wedding in the paper 
and then lost sight of her alto- 
gether. He came across her mother, 
though, at a hill station two years 
later, very loud and noisy, at a very 
late, or rather early, second supper 
after the Bachelors’ Ball. No one 
seemed surprised ; Mrs. Church- 
hill was generally very noisy after 
supper now, people said. 

It was when he was ordered home 
by the doctors after an attack of 
fever and general overwork that he 
met Eva again. She was sitting in 
the Row on Sunday morning with 
her husband and her little girl, and 


76 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


she looked to him so altered, so 
much sadder, the girlish light- 
heartedness all gone out of her. 
But she came up to him with out- 
stretched hand, and her old frank 
manner : 

“ Mr. Melfort Prayte, I must 
speak to you ? I have so often 
wanted to meet you again, and to 
apologize for my behavior to you. 
I thought once that you wished to 
be rude to me, wished to insult me ; 
something you said hurt me very 
much — I was very young and very 
inexperienced at the time. You 
remember what I allude to ? Alas ! 
you were quite right ; but I didn’t 
know, and I was angry with you. 
Will you forgive me and let me 
introduce you to my husband t ” 



H Soutbeea Bubble. 


HE was Winsome, with a 
big W, if ever fluffy hair, 
a tip-tilted nose, and long- 
lashed, laughing eyes, half 
closing with fun when she 
smiled, can make a girl 
sOo When first I knew her she 
might have been no more than 
eighteen ; but she was more in 
the know ” than many a country- 
brought-up maiden of eight-and- 
thirty. But then the Misses Bar- 
ringer had had rather a hot- house 
education. They were Southsea 
girls. Papa . Barringer had once 
been a major in the something or 
other ; but he had died off long 
ago, leaving a small, meek widow, 
who was utterly unable to cope with 



78 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


her offspring. Of these, the eldest, 
Belle, a tall, handsome, black-eyed 
girl, was not so young as she once 
had been, and had, moreover, a past. 
There were several versions of that 
past current in Southsea society. 
Miss Barringer was on easy terms 
with all the men, naval and military, 
who went out much ; but no one 
ever dreamed of being seriously in 
love with her, much less of propos- 
ing to her. It was noticeable, too, 
that her friends were all of one sex. 
Her own was not kind to Belle Bar- 
ringer. Eventually, I believe, she 
ran away with the head groom in a 
riding establishment, and may be 
seen any day taking out riding-par- 
ties of young ladies over the Brighton 
downs. 

The second sister, Sally, had been 
badly jilted by a naval man she was 
engaged to, a second-lieutenant of 
the troopship Alligator^ who whiled 
away his six months of summer idle- 
ness in wiling away her affections. 
Sally then took to good works. 
She was the right-hand and highly- 
valued coadjutor of the very or- 
namental vicar of St. Estephe’s, 
who had an invalid wife who never 


A SOUTHSEA BUBBLE. 


79 


went out. He said he did not know 
what he should have done without 
Miss Barringer’s kindness. He left 
Southsea later, rather suddenly. It 
was understood he had taken a chap- 
laincy in Hawaii. About the same 
time Sally Barringer joined a Sister- 
hood, and we heard afterward she 
had gone out to nurse the lepers 
in that same happy island. But 
Southsea gossip was rather vague 
about it all, and the subsequent 
vicar of St. Estephe’s had a very 
strong-minded wife, who managed 
the parish herself. 

Dottie, our heroine, was the 
youngest. At the time I am speak- 
ing of no one had very much to say 
against her, and there was undenia- 
bly a great deal to be said in her 
favor. She was a small person, 
capable of infinite possibilities, and 
decidedly with a future before her. 

We were quartered in the Anglesea 
barracks. India was looming before 
us. It was our last summer in Eng- 
land, and we were bent on having a 
good time. We gave a big ball, and 
started a regimental yacht. None 
of us knew much about sailing, but 
we had good fun, and nobody was 


8o IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


drowned. We had some adventures, 
though. Wilton, who^vas our skip- 
per — chosen on account, I believe, 
of having failed for the navy before 
he tried Sandhurst— Freddy Duf- 
field, and another, with Belle and 
Dottie Barringer, got becalmed one 
afternoon down the Solent off Cal- 
shot Point. They had to leave the 
yacht, wherein the sleeping accom- 
modation was of the slenderest de- 
scription, and row ashore, and put 
up for the night at a wayside inn. 
Nobody minded about Belle ; but I 
was sorry abou'c Dotty, she was so 
young ; and Freddy Duffield was 
sorry too. 

For Freddy was getting really 
hard hit. Poor Freddy ! he was 
such a good-natured old fellow, so 
single-minded and sincere himself, 
that he saw no distance at all, and 
expected everyone to be the same. 
It is a very praiseworthy kind of 
character ; one which, it is to be 
hoped, gets its reward in another 
and a better world, for it certainly 
meets with the reverse in this. Dot- 
tie had flirted a bit with us all around, 
not excepting the old C. O., who posi- 
tively beamed upon her, and called 


A SOUTHSEA BUBBLE. 


8i 


her That pretty child.” To my 
own knowledge I found her making 
appointments for evening strolls on 
the pier with young Scamperleigh, 
and it was at her suggestion that he 
got up that theater expedition, where- 
in the chaperone mysteriously failed 
at the last moment. We came back 
about 2.30 A. M. — the theater train 
late, as usual — and had an im- 
promptu supper at the Barringers'. 
I remember Belle disturbed the ma- 
ternal slumbers upstairs by the 
choruses we emitted to her banjo 
songs. 

About this time came the great 
Prosington-Duffield row. Prosing- 
ton was not long married, and was 
kept in great order by his wife. He 
made some remark about Mademoi- 
selle Dottie in the anteroom, and 
not altogether in her praise. I for- 
get what it was, probably a repetition 
of some uncharitable story of South- 
sea gossips, which had filtered to him 
through his wife. 

Duffield took it up furiously, and 
exploded a bomb-shell into the mid- 
dle of us by announcing that he was 
engaged to the young lady in ques- 
tion. 


82 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW 


He and Prosington did not speak 
for a month. Upon us all fell a 
great awe. We, the Royal Scilly 
Islanders, were a most ancient and 
honorable corps, who, the outside 
world averred, gave themselves no 
end of airs. We were by no means 
so particular about other ladies in 
society, but our regimental ladies 
had always been perfect Caesar’s 
wives. The C. O. took Freddy’s 
little affair up. His father was com- 
municated with. Freddy suddenly 
got a long spell of leave and left 
Southsea till we were on the point of 
embarking for India. 

Sir Duncan’s shooting in York- 
shire was famous. Freddy was the 
eldest son, and it was meet he should 
have his share of it before he left 
England. The arrangement was en- 
tirely for his good. But Freddy 
fumed. He stood with his broad 
shoulders against the mantelpiece of 
his room in barracks one evening, as 
I smoked a cigar with him, and held 
forth. 

It’s an infernal conspiracy ! 
That’s what it is. The sweetest, 
dearest little girl — yes, of course, I 
know — I’m not going to marry the 


A SOUTHSEA BUBBLE. 83 


sisters ! I will take the poor child 
away out of that horrible set — think 
what she must have gone through — 
so young and so innocent. The 
Pater will come round. He’s only 
to see her. Nobody can look into 
Dottie’s eyes and withstand her. 
And if he thinks he’s going to play 
the stern parent with me, he’s much 
mistaken. We’re too fond of each 
other for anyone to come between 
us. By Jove ! if you’d only seen the 
poor child this afternoon when I told 
her my leave was in orders ! ” 

And so on, with variations, as long 
as I would listen. Next day he de- 
parted, and one could only hope for 
the best. We read in the World 
that Sir Duncan Duffield was hav- 
ing a very smart party for the 
twelfth. 

It was at an afternoon dance on 
board the Inferior. The Misses 
Barringer were there under the nom- 
inal chaperonage of Mrs. Golightly, 
a grass widow, whose husband was 
at sea. I passed them by on the 
other side, for the edict had gone 
forth in the mess that, after poor 
Freddy’s fiasco, the Barringers were 
to be avoided. But I found myself 


84 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


close to Dottie at the tea-table, the 
center of a knot of sub-lieutenants. 
A fellow in the Horse Marines from 
Westney was pestering for another 
dance. 

Dkfendu^ mon cher!'' laughed 
Dottie, shaking at him a little plump 
left hand, on the third finger of 
which glittered a diamond ring. 

My young man won’t let me dance 
more than three times — not with the 
C-in-C. himself.” 

And then again on the tennis 
ground, when a sudden shower sent 
all the players huddling under the 
central shed. We grumbled at the 
wet August, and Dottie shot a wicked 
glance across to me as she remarked, 
rather loud to her partner : 

‘^Yes, I hear from Yorkshire 
the weather’s just beastly for the 
moors ! ” 

So we feared the worst. 

The day of our embarkation came. 
Freddy had returned. The great 
white troopship lay drawn up at the 
jetty, under the old clock tower 
which has witnessed so many part- 
ings, ready to receive the Royal 
Scillies, as, no longer in smart red 
uniform, but in hospital-like sea-kit 


A SOUTHSEA BUBBLE. 85 


of blue serge and stocking cap, they 
marched, like a long swarm of dark 
ants, into her side. 

The departure or arrival of a 
trooper is to the fair South Sea 
islander a little amusement, kindly 
provided by Government for her 
during the drear winter months, 
when the pier is impossible and ten- 
nis is not. All the world was on the 
poop-deck of the Jurnbo^ to say good- 
by to us. I stumbled upon Freddy 
and Dottie in a secluded corner be- 
hind the piano on the stern lockers, 
having a fond farewell, and, to do 
her justice, the girl’s sweet eyes were 
very dewy. 

When we got to India we were 
sent to Bulamabad. It is a splendid 
sporting station, but socially deficient. 
Except our own ladies, the female 
part of society, what there was of it, 
seemed touched with the tar-brush 
and unattractive. Like the rest of 
us, Freddy became immersed in the 
delights of pig-sticking and black- 
buck shooting. When he took 
leave in the hot weather he eschewed 
the allurements of the frivolous hill 
stations, and went to Cashmere and 
slew bears. But the bare whitewashed 


86 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


room of the bungalow I shared with 
him was adorned with photos of Dottie 
Barringer in every conceivable cos- 
tume, from one taken at the age of 
fifteen in a bathing-dress, with her hair 
down, as the heroine of the story of 
how one sweet little maid washed 
herself ashore with a tablet of Pears’ 
soap.” 

A year passed. The changes I 
have above alluded to took place in 
the Barringer family, and Mamma 
Barringer went to her much-needed 
rest. Freddy Duffield took a myste- 
rious ten days’ shooting leave, and, 
for a wonder, did not tell me what 
he was going after. We found he 
had taken the mail train to Bombay, 
and he returned with Dottie Barrin- 
ger as Mrs. Freddy. 

She was rather older and stouter- 
looking, her voice a trifle more shrill, 
but her manners and ways more 
genue than ever. We made the best 
of it. We Scilly Islanders kept our 
regimental dhobis^ and did not put 
out our soiled linen to wash. And 
really, at first, Dottie behaved quite 
prettily. She was as quiet as a little 
mouse, sisterly to all of us, and quite 
grandmotherly to Freddy, who trot- 


A SOUTHSEA BUBBLE. 87 


ted about at her beck and call like a 
tame great Newfoundland, and was 
asbsurdly happy. 

But when the novelty of her life 
wore out, Dottie began to find Bula- 
mabad less cheerful than Southsea. 
In the Scilly Islanders the first mess 
rule is : Thou shalt not flirt with 

thy brother-officer’s wife.” Freddy’s 
devotion, though gratifying, was exi- 
geant, and began to pall. 

It was probably ennui that, at the 
beginning of the hot weather, brought 
on an attack of fever. Mrs. Dottie 
lost her pretty English color, and 
the regimental pill ” prescribed the 
hills. Freddy took her up to Nynee 
Tal, and settled her at a tiny chatet 
on the rhododendron heights. But 
it was a sickly season at Bulamabad. 
We were short-handed, and he had 
to return to duty. 

Mrs. Dottie must speedily have re- 
covered her health at Nynee Tal, for 
our special correspondent ” there, 
began soon in the Fio7ieer to quote 
her and her ’doings in his gossipy 
letters. Now, it was her charming 
appearance at the Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor’s birthday fancy dress ball, 
attired as King Cophetua’s beggar- 


88 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


maid, her pretty pink skin, we were 
given to understand, peeping through 
her tatters. Then, it was posing as 
Rebecca at the Well, in some charity 
tableaux^ simply swathed in pink mus- 
lin, most statuesque. Next, it was 
her coxing the Honorable Reggy 
Darlish’s four-oar in the Civilians 
versus Soldiers boat-race. Naughty 
Nynee was very full that season, and 
the fun was fast and furious round 
the lovers’ lake. The Honorable 
Reggy was the Lieutenant-Governor’s 
A. D. C., very fascinating, as many a 
grass widow at many a hill station 
would aver, and the hero of a cause 
celebre, out of which he had escaped 
by the skin of his teeth. We read 
that it was Mrs. Duffield who nomi- 
nated his pony in the Ladies’ Bracelet 
at the races ; that it was Mrs. Duffield 
scored such a success acting with him 
in Sweethearts ” and ‘^Uncle’s Will” 
at the great theatricals. 

Old Mrs. De Ferret, the collector’s 
wife at Bulamabad, whose stories 
were as highly spiced asLer curries, 
bluntly informed us that our Mrs. 
Duffield had set up a‘‘ bow-wow ” at 
Nynee Tal, and that the bow-wow ” 
was Captain Daiiish. But we were a 


A SOUTHSEA BUBBLE. 89 


simple-minded sporting corps, un- 
versed in the wicked ways of the 
Himalayas, and we did not pay much 
attention to her. 

Freddy was jubilant over his wife’s 
sensation, and lived on the letters 
she sent him. 

^‘Such nonsense” he said to me 
one day, as he launched out into a 
new polo-pony, “that people talk 
about the expense of life in India, 
and of two establishments, the hills, 
and so on. Why, the missus, with all 
the going out she has, finds the little 
trousseau she brought out quite 
enough, and her bills are nothing ! 
I offered to send her up a pony to 
ride, but she says it would be too ex- 
pensive, and that she can always bor- 
row a mount.” 

It struck me, somehow, that this 
did not quite tally with the Pioneer 
correspondent’s glowing descriptions 
of the beautiful Mrs. Duffield’s won- 
drous toilettes at the big balls. But 
I dare say she knew best about her 
own clothes. Women are so clever. 

It was terribly hot weather at 
Bulamabad. One always feels the 
second hot weather more than the 
first. We were sent out into cholera 


90 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


camp, which is not cheerful in June. 
Then, when at last the rains broke, 
there was a great deal of fever. 
Freddy and I both went down with 
it, and as soon as were fit to move he 
suggested that we should take ten 
days at Nynee Tal, where he would 
put me up. 

So thankful that dear child has 
been safe up there, out of this hell-up- 
on-earth ! ” he would mutter to him- 
self, when at his worst. 

So off we started. A hideous day 
in the train, thermometer at — what- 
ever you like; a jolting night in a ddk~ 
gharry^ sleep impossible. Then, 
with the dawn, the purple masses of 
the Himalayas, and a long ride on 
ancient hill-ponies up, and up, and 
up, by winding mountain paths, yclept 
roads ; over rushing torrents, and 
through ilex woods, all fresh and 
green and cool to our weary eyes. 
But it was a gray day . in the rains. 
We had a sharp shower on our way 
up, and we found a dense mist hang- 
ing over the little lake. As we rode 
along the steep zigzag path up the 
bare mountain-side leading to Mrs. 
Duffield’s house, the fog lifted, and a 


A SOUTHSEA BUBBLE. 


91 


cold gust of wind cut down from a 
cleft in the hills. 

It nearly blew off my now most 
unnecessary pith helmet, and it flut- 
tered something down -from the 
heights above, something small and 
white. It fell at my pony’s feet ; it 
was a letter. 

Give it to me,” I said to the na- 
tive attendant who was accompany- 
ing me, hanging on to my quad- 
ruped’s tail. 

What on earth have you got 
there?” asked Freddy, riding up 
close to me and looking over my 
shoulder. 

A letter blown down from some- 
one’s hand overhead,” I replied, 
‘‘ It’s rather muddy.” But I read : 

Dearest Reggy : 

Hubby turned up unexpectedly. Keep 
away to night. Will send word. Usual hour 
when coast is clear. Yours as always, 

Dottie. 

I read, and Freddy read too, look- 
ing over my shoulder. 

Reading, we turned a sharp corner 
up the path, and came suddenly on the 
other zigzag upon a man in a much 
belaced uniform on a pony, standing 


92 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


Still. His groom at that moment 
climbed painfully up the side of the 
rocks from below, whence we had 
come, and joining his hands, ap- 
proached his master. 

Sahib ! I have searched every- 
where. I cannot find the letter, 
perhaps the wind 

But I had recognized the man in 
uniform. 

“ Hullo, Darlish ! ” I exclaimed. 

I stopped short. For Freddy 
turned and gave me an inquiring look. 
I shall never forget his face as long 
as I live. It was livid with rage. 

He dug his spurs into his pony and 
went for Darlish. 

The latter was taken quite by sur- 
prise. The path was very narrow, 
the edge rotten with recent rains, and 
the rocks sheer. 

The ponies collided, staggered, 
floundered, struggled, and fell over 
the side with their riders. 

Darlish got clear of his and saved 
himself by catching hold of the branch 
of a tree. Freddy and his horse 
rolled over and over ever so far. 

The pony was killed, and Freddy, 
when we found him, was lying 
motionless, bleeding profusely from 


A SOUTHSEA BUBBLE. 


93 


a cut on the head. We picked him 
up, his groom and I, and carried him 
up to his house. ^ 

His wife met us in the veranda, 
with shrieks of terror. 

‘‘ Don’t you think you’d better clear 
out of this ? ” said I, harshly as ever 
I spoke to a woman, when she came 
forward to see to him. She slunk 
away into another room. 

We got a doctor ; but the skull was 
fractured. It was a case of hours. 
Toward dawn he came to, and called 
for Dottie. 

I sent her in, and stood just out- 
side in the veranda, looking down 
into the dark lake below, and listen- 
ing to the bowlings of a jackal near 
the native bazaar. 

Freddy spoke a little, but his mind 
had gone back to the old Southsea 
days. 

“ Dot ! Get your mother to let 
you come out for a sail — this after- 
noon — I’ll meet you on the pier ” 

And he died at daybreak with her 
hand in his. 



after Uona l^ears of pain. 


WAS loafing, I generally 
was in those days. That 
is the worst of having 
plenty of money and time 
with nothing to do, and no 
one to think of but your- 
self. Nous avons change tout cela ; 
but not in the days I am writing 
about. 

It was the time of year when I 
made a business of yachting for a few 
weeks ere the duty of shooting carried 
me to Scotland. The Plaisaunce 
lay at anchor in Flanerville Harbor, 
and I was sauntering along the plage 
in front of the Casino, studying the 
human form divine in its bathing- 
costumes as it emerged, in bewilder- 
ing variety and attractiveness, from 
the cabanes. 



after long years of pain. 95 


Je vous en prie, monsieur, aidez- 
moi trouver ma cabane? ” 

The speaker was a small dark-eyed 
boy, clad in a dripping scarlet gar- 
ment, who was vainly endeavoring to 
find his local habitation and his 
clothes among the row of precisely 
similar erections which faced the 
waves. 

Savez-vous le numero ? ” I in- 
quired, with a fine British accent. 

His little face brightened instantly. 

That’s just it ! I’ve kite fordot 
it. Oh, it’s all right, fanks ; I see 
C^lestine coming. Fanks awfully!” — 
and away he scampered to his bonne. 

This was my first introduction to 
Jack. 

We met again in the afternoon at 
the Casino. The ball-room was 
crowded, and the scene of wild orgies. 
The bal-a' enfants was just over, and 
a swarm of eager youngsters of every 
age, and of not a few nationalities — 
French, English, American, Rus- 
sian — were drawing in the tombola for 
toys, which was the crown of the 
afternoon’s diversion. As I looked 
on, amused, my acquaintance of the 
morning, now clothed in a sailor suit, 
rushed up to a lady standing beside 


96 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


me, proudly exhibiting a Polichin- 
elle” doll. He recognized me, and 
begged me to admire it. I was jos- 
tled at that moment by the crowd, and 
knocked Mr. Punch out of his hands. 
It fell among everyone’s feet. We 
had a great hunt. When we re- 
covered it, Polichinelle was in pieces, 
and Jack in tears. AVhat could I do 
but purchase him another lottery 
ticket, in order to replace the toy. 
All these transactions led to my talk- 
ing to Jack’s mother. 

She was just the kind of woman 
whom you would have expected to 
have such a dear little son. Unmis^ 
takably English — though Jack looked 
very dark, and his French was irre- 
proachable, tall and straight and 
strong, with sweet, dark eyes — a 
thorough, well-bred ’un. 

That evening I ran against the 
Sandham-Sollys at the petits chevaux 
table in the Casino, we all of us being 
deeply interested in staking small 
sums on the gyrations of the little 
gilt quadrupeds. They invited me 
to ddjeuner with them next morning 
at the Grand Hotel. I went and I 
met Jack’s mother, and was intro- 
duced to her as Madame d’Esterre. 


AFTER LONG YEARS OF PAIN. 97 


Such a charming woman, so 
glad you like her ! ” whispered Mrs. 
Sandham-Solly, as we imbibed black 
coffee and cigarettes on the terrace. 

My oldest friends, she and her twin 
sister, poor Constance, who went out 
to an aunt in India and got killed in 
the mutiny — such a sad story. But 
Florence — this is Florence — was 
always the handsomest — married a 
Frenchman ; he died two years ago. 
Yes, Jack’s a darling ! His mother’s 
wrapped up in him ! ” 

Jack came and leant on my knee 
and looked up at me with his dark 
eyes. 

^^Will ’ou do somefing for me? 
Will ’ou take me and mummy for a 
sail in ’our big boat. I vant to go 
in a big boat ! ” 

Oh, Jack ! Jack ! ” put in his 
mother. 

But I will, with pleasure. Jack ! ” 
I hastened to interpose ; “ if you 
will ask your mother and Mr. and 
Mrs. Solly to come, too.” 

It was the first of many a sail we 
five had in the Plaisaunce that 
August. It is a lovely coast off 
Flanerville ; the •weather was fair 
a blue sea, and a summer breeze, 


98 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


Ere long Jack had become the sworn 
friend of every man of the crew, and 
insisted on wearing the yacht ribbon 
on his hat. They were pleasant 
days. I can see now Madame 
d’Esterre lolling in a big wicker 
chair, and Jack trying to steer. All 
too soon, for me at least, they came 
to an end. 

A little more than a year later I 
started for six months’ big-game 
shooting in India. I had had good 
sport a few years back after bison 
and moose in the Rockies, and had 
spent a winter cruising off the Al- 
banian coast, shooting deer, and pig, 
and snipe. But I had not been East 
yet. I took the overland route, you 
know — whirled like a pill in a pill- 
box from Calais to Marseilles for 
three days. Wagon-lits were not- 
Then, vid Alexandria, through Egypt 
to Suez. There I found the P. and 
O. mail-boat awaiting me, with the 
passengers who had come the long 
sea-route through the Bay. We 
overlanders were towed out with 
our baggage on a sort of barge to 
where the great vessel lay in the 
roads opposite th£ mouth of the 
Canal The ancient inhabitants of 


AFTER LONG YEARS OF PAIN. 99 


the ship stood leaning over the 
gunwale examining us with curiosity. 
As I stepped on deck I thought I 
saw a familar form. 

Madame d’Esterre ! Is it you ? 
I am glad. And how’s my friend 
Jack ? ” 

Her face had lighted up on first 
seeing me with that sweet smile I 
had learned to like so well. But at 
my last words she shrank back as if 
I had struck her. Hardly respond- 
ing to my greeting she turned away 
and hurried below. 

A tall, soldierly-looking man, who 
was standing beside her, came for- 
ward. 

‘‘Allow me to apologize for my 
sister. You seem an old friend of 
hers. You inquired after her boy. 
Poor little Jackie died three months 
ago. It was a terrible shock to her. 
In fact she has not got over it yet. 
I am ordered out to India to my 
battery, and my wife has persuaded 
Madame d’Esterre to go with us for 
a change. She and I are alone in 
the world now. My other poor 
sister died in India some years ago.” 

I found Madame d’Esterre much 
altered. All the buoyancy seemed 


100 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


crushed out of her. To me she was 
as charming as ever, but at first Jack’s 
name was not mentioned between 
us. However, I had been Jack’s 
friend, and gradually, very gradually, 
I got her to speak of him — of the days 
at Flanerville, of Jack’s pretty ways, 
of his exploits on the plage or on 
the Plaisaunce, It was a somewhat 
sad ten days that we spent together, 
steaming down the Red Sea, the 
arid Arabian mountains fringing the 
horizon, a gleaming sea below, a 
cloudless sky above. I took her 
ashore at Aden, to divert her mind a 
little. We drove out over a desert 
land to see the famous water-tanks. 
We bought ostrich feathers in the 
bazaar, and over the ship’s side we 
threw coppers for the amphibious 
youth to dive for from their little 
canoes into the clear water. Then 
on again. There were still calm 
balmy nights in the Indian Ocean, 
the Southern Cross shining overhead, 
and a long wake of phosphorescence 
behind made by the ship’s course. 
Then came the purple ghauts and 
the lovely palm-fringed Bay of Bom- 
bay — and, good-by. No, au revoii\ 
I promised Major Alkirk that I 


AFTER LONG YEARS OF PAIN. lOI 


would come and stay with them when 
I went north. 

I went south first, though, and 
shot some tigers on foot in Central 
India, and slew much deer and such 
small fry, living the while in tents 
and dak bungalows, or as the guest 
of various civilians, who preserved 
big game in their districts much 
as an English landowner preserves 
pheasants. 

Colonel Llanover was one of these, 
an agreeable man about my own age, 
a thorough sportsman, and an hospi- 
table, if somewhat reserved, host. 
He was rather solitary in the remote 
station of Guramabad, having only 
a couple of European subordinates, 
and pressed me to stay on long after 
my visit was supposed to be at an 
end. I liked him, though he was so 
grave, not to say melancholy ; but 
the black-buck shooting in his dis- 
trict was superb, and I stayed. 

One day I was turning over some 
of my boxes in search of something, 
Llanover standing by, when I came 
suddenly on a photograph of Madame 
d’Esterre. She had had it done 
during the few days I spent with her 
and the Alkirks at Bombay, at my 


102 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


special wish, as a little parting sou- 
venir. It was a beautiful picture, 
though she looked grave and sad in 
it, in her dark dress. I could not 
help taking it up for a few moments. 
Colonel Llanover looked over my 
shoulder. 

‘‘ Good God ! ” he gasped. Where 
did you get that ? 

‘‘ What ! do you know her ? ” I 
exclaimed. 

Know her ! know her ! It’s my 
poor Constance.” 

You are making some mistake,” 
I rejoined. This is a friend of 
mine, Mrs. d’Esterre. She gave it 
me at Bombay.” 

He looked at the photograph 
closely. 

I beg your pardon, but it was 
so like — so like. It gave me a shock 
for a moment — opened an old wound. 
I thought it was a Miss Alkirk I — I — 
used to know.” 

Miss Alkirk,” I replied. “ Mrs. 
d’Esterre was a Miss Alkirk ! Can 
you be thinking of her sister, who 
died.” 

“ I am,” he rejoined. Constance 
Alkirk — who — who died.” 

He turned away and said no more 


AFTER LONG YEARS OF PAIN. IO3 


at the time. But that evening, as we 
sat smoking after dinner in the ver- 
anda, he told me his story. It was 
getting hot weather, and the night 
was still and sultry, and intensely 
dark. All was very silent, save for 
the distant howl of a jackal or the 
bark of a pariah dog. It was a short 
sad story Colonel Llanover told. 

Constance Alkirk had come out to 
India to an uncle but a few months 
before the outbreak of the Mutiny. 
Major Llanover was quartered at the 
same station. They played croquet 
together, and danced together, almost 
every evening for a few weeks, and 
then they were engaged. Then, 
quite suddenly, like a mighty confla- 
gration, came the great rebellion, 
scouring all the country. The lovers 
parted, Llanover to his duty in the 
thickest of the fight before Delhi ; 
Constance to a place of refuge, which, 
alas ! turned out to be a means of 
destruction. Everyone knows the 
events that followed. A handful of 
Europeans starved and sickened into 
surrender; the men cut down, -the 
women and children massacred, not 
a trace of a survivor. That was the 
story Llanover told. 


104 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


He was a rising official now, in a 
responsible and coveted berth, a man 
who was making a mark. But, as I 
looked at his worn, grave face, and 
thought of the lonely bachelor life 
he was leading in Guramabad, I 
realized that all the joy had gone out 
of his life. 

Next morning I got a letter, 
brought out by the primitive postal 
arrangements of the district and car- 
*ried for miles through forest and 
plain in a basket on a coolie’s back. 

When are you coming to see 
us?” wrote Madame d’Esterre, dating 
from the hill station of Simree. 

John has two months’ leave, and 
we are going on a march into the 
interior of the hills. Come and join 
us. No civilization, camp life, lovely 
scenery, and shooting.” 

A few days later found me, after a 
long, hot, dusty journey over sun- 
baked plains in rail and post carriage, 
mounted on a sturdy hill pony, 
ascending winding mountain paths 
amid shady forests and bawling tor- 
rents to lovely Simree, perched 
among ilex woods on the mountain 
side. 

‘‘ I am glad you have come,” said 


AFtER LONG YEARS OF PAIN. 105 


Mrs. Alkirk privately to me. “ You 
did Florence so much good on board 
ship.” 

‘‘You see I was Jack’s friend,” I 
answered, and then told them I had 
been staying with Colonel Llanover. 

“Ah!” said John Alkirk, “I 
should like to see him, for poor Con- 
stance’s sake ! Letter’s passed at 
the time, but we never met. Now 
we too have come out to India I wish 
he would come and see us.” 

A letter was written to the brother- 
in-law that was to have been. Llan- 
over answered that nothing would 
please him better, and that he would 
make arrangements to take a month’s 
leave and follow us, as we marched 
by easy stages. 

What a motley train we were as we 
set off from Simree very early that 
bright April morning upon our 
nomad expedition. Major Alkirk 
and myself rode hill ponies, as also 
did Florence d’Esterre, and wore 
white pith helmets, for the sun is hot 
even in the hills. Mrs. Alkirk was 
carried, a la Guy Fawkes, in an arm- 
chair on a pole, yclept a dandy. Ser- 
vants followed on foot, some ten or 
twelve among us, the cook shoulder- 


I 06 IN tENT AND BUNGALOW. 


ing the iron spit with which he 
roasted. Before and after us toiled 
troops of coolies, laden with our 
tents, our camp furniture, and our 
baggage. Our way lay along narrow 
mountain paths, dignified by the 
name of roads, cut out of the hillside 
and overhanging the deep gorges. 
The mountains were richly clothed 
with ilex and with rhododendrons, 
bursting here and there into scarlet 
bloom. Ferns of all sorts carpeted 
the precipices and fringed the 
branches of the trees. Starting at 
dawn, we halted for an al fresco 
breakfast in some shady spot with 
a lovely panorama of ‘purple hills 
stretching, fold after fold, away to 
China, and ere the midday sun was 
hot, reached our new camping- 
ground, where our canvas home was 
rapidly being erected. A lazy after- 
noon, with perhaps a little shouting 
of black partridges or pheasants, a 
bath in a stream, and then dinner in 
the veranda of the mess tent, by the 
light of a great, full moon. 

A pleasant idle life. For a few 
days we were very happy. The color 
had returned to Florence d’Esterre’s 
cheek, and the sparkle to her eye. 


AFTER LONG YEARS OF PAIN. 10 ^ 


As for me, true that I was not get- 
ting much sport, that game was not 
so plentiful as it might have been, 
but — I did not care. 

Three days after we had started, 
Colonel Llanover joined us by forced 
marches. It was an odd meeting, 
out there in the mountains, of those 
three, bound by the sacred memory 
of one long dead. I did not see it, 
but took myself off fishing a few 
miles away, and did not return till 
dinner-time. 

When we had been a week away 
from Simree, Mrs. Alkirk, as caterer, 
began to hint that our supplies were 
running short, and that it was advis- 
able that we should get to some place 
where we could replenish them. The 
tiny villages of mud huts we had 
passed through afforded hardly as 
much as a fowl, much less mutton, 
white flour, or potatoes. So we de- 
scended into rather a wide, low val- 
ley, and encamped by the side of a 
tolerably large and sedate stream. 
The village looked a good size, and 
was the summer capital of a small 
independent Rajah, whose state ran 
up into the Himalayas from the 
plains below. The Rajah’s palace 


to8 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


we were shown, on a solitary rocky 
mound above the stream, surrounded 
by all mud-walls. We determined 
to make a halt there of a few days, 
and to send back to Simree for let- 
ters and newspapers, enjoying in the 
meantime the unwonted luxuries of 
mutton, plaintains, and plenty of 
fresh milk. We caught marseer, too, 
in the river. 

One evening, after fishing, Llano- 
ver and I strolled up the mountain 
that rose beyond the stream, follow- 
ing a tiny track used by natives or 
goats. At a turn of the path we 
came suddenly on two or three cool- 
ies attired in the rather shabby and 
dirty finery which proclaimed them 
the Rajah’s attendants. They were 
squatting, resting by the path, and 
near them sat a small boy. He was 
clothed in a long cloth garment, and 
his bare feet were thrust into pointed 
slippers. He had evidently been 
playing about, for his turban had 
fallen off, disclosing his dark, closely 
cropped hair. He turned and looked 
at us with curiosity as we ap- 
proached. I stopped short in the 
middle of the path, transfixed with 
astonishment. 


AFTER LONG YEARS OF PAIN. I09 


The boy was little Jack come to 
life again ! The same size, the same 
dark eyes, the same winning expres- 
sion, despite the difference of dress. 

I rubbed my eyes bewildered. 

“ Whose boy is this.^” I asked the 
attendants. 

The late Rajah's son, your High- 
ness," replied the slatternly menial, 
with a salaam. 

What a strange likeness," I 
thought to myself, as the boy walked 
on in front of me. 

Suddenly I heard a noise and a 
shriek from one of the servants. On 
the steep hillside above us a cow or 
goat had, in grazing, loosened some 
rocks, and a shower of great stones 
and bowlders came flying down upon 
us. 

The child either did not hear or 
heed, but walked on ahead uncon- 
scious of his danger. Then suddenly 
he stopped, gazing upward panic- 
stricken, as a large bowlder bore 
down toward him with fearful speed. 
I rushed forward, and, seizing the 
boy, pulled him out of danger into a 
safe spot. 

When all was quiet again, the ser- 
vants rushed up, after the manner of 


no IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


their kind, and overwhelmed the 
child with their attentions. 

When we returned to camp Llano- 
ver related the little incident. But I 
suppressed all mention of the extra- 
ordinary likeness I had noticed be- 
tween the little Rajah and Florence’s 
lost darling. 

As we sat at dinner, however, 
under the outside, awning of our 
little mess-tent, doing justice to the 
excellent repast of four courses 
which Ali Bux, with the magic of a 
native cook, contrived to send up 
from the hole in the ground where 
he was conducting his mysterious 
culinary operations, we were startled 
by the arrival of a messenger from 
the palace on the hill. 

“They had heard white Sahibs 
had arrived in this place, where 
white Sahibs came but rarely. The 
wife of the late Rajah was very ill, 
was like to die. Had the Sahibs any 
English medicine Would they see 
her ? ” 

“ I am no Doctor Sahib,” explained 
Colonel Llanover, who took com- 
mand of the situation, being an ex- 
cellent Hindoostanee scholar, and 
having long experience of the coun- 


AFTER LONG YEARS OF PAIN. Ill 


try to boot. ‘‘What is more, no 
Rajah’s purdah woman would see 
me, even were she dying.” 

“ But, Sahib,” rejoined the man, 
“ this one is English. She was the 
late Rajah’s favorite wife — her he 
brought from down below when the 
troubles were on. She is very ill.” 

“ English ! ” we exclaimed. 

^‘Some half-caste girl, no doubt,” 
put in Llanover. “ But as, doubt- 
less, she has a wish to see me, I will 
go. Bearer, bring my medicine- 
chest ; I have doctored natives be- 
fore now.” 

I asked permission to accompany 
him. Armed with a lantern we left 
the camp, and followed the servant 
up the hill and through a gateway 
closed with heavy iron-studded 
doors. By the dim light we could 
see we were in a courtyard, out of 
which opened various small chambers. 
Opposite to us was a larger building, 
without doors or windows, but with 
the openings between the pillars 
filled in with heavy mats. Through 
one of these our guide led us. A 
woman squatting on the ground rose 
up at our entrance. 

“ She sleeps — perhaps she will 


1 12 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


never wake/* and she motioned us 
to a sleeping form on a low bed in a 
corner. 

But a small figure lying near it, 
half asleep, on the floor, sat up at 
our approach. 

Kullo ! ” I exclaimed. This 
is my little friend of this afternoon,** 
looking down into the sleepy dark 
eyes he was rubbing. 

The sleeping woman stirred. 

Who*s speaking ? ** she asked, 
faintly. 

Llanover went up to her. 

I hear English. Jack, where 
are you ? ** 

The child went and curled up be- 
side her. She threw her arm around 
him. 

‘‘Jack! Jack! you musn’t go far 
from mummy. You won’t have her 
long ! ** 

“Mummy go sleep again. Jack 
go sleep, too,” murmured the boy, 
dozing again. 

Llanover put out his hand and 
felt her pulse. 

“ I am the doctor Sahib,” he said 
gently. “Tell me where you feel 
pain.” 

To our intense surprise the sick 


AFTER LONG YEARS OF PAIN. II3 


woman gave a great start. Her eyes 
opened wide ; she sat up and stared 
at him. The native behind, holding 
the lantern, shed a light on her 
white face and glittering dark eyes. 

Llanover started back, and then 
looked at her transfixed. There was 
a silence of some minutes, broken 
only by the heavy breathing of the 
sleeping child. 

Then she stretched out her arms. 

“Edward ! you have come at 
last ! 

“Constance! Is it you?’' he 
asked, in a choked voice. 

Then I slipped out of the chamber, 
through the courtyard, and went and 
fetched Florence and her brother. 

They had met, however, but to be 
parted. Years of grief and anxiety, 
of shame and of semi-captivity, had 
told upon Constance. She did not 
live many days. But she sent for 
me ere she died to thank me. 

“ You saved my Jack’s life,” she 
gasped painfully. “But for that I 
should never have known that you — 
all, Edward, the others — were here — 
so near.” 

We buried her under an ilex tree, 
on a lonely spur above the village, 


1 14 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


within sight of the far-off snows. I 
read the burial service over her, and 
we placed a cross above her grave. 

Then we turned home again, back 
from our gypsy expedition which had 
ended so strangely and so sadly. 

We were to start before dawn, 
taking Jack with us, as the Rajah’s 
people had handed us over the boy. 
Florence and 1 and he sat together 
taking a last farewell of his mother’s 
grave. The sun had just set, and 
the mighty snow range above the 
forest-clad heights was glowing with 
an unearthly pink. 

Jack got no mummy now,” mur- 
mured the child, sadly. 

Auntie will be your mummy,” 
cried Florence, clasping him in her 
arms, with a sob. 

Jack,” I said, bending over him, 
‘‘ask Auntie if I may be your father 
then ? ” 

Florence raised to me a face smil- 
ing through her tears, and glowing 
rosy like the snows. 

I kissed it. 



an^ port in a Dust-storm. 

A TRUE STORY. 


Don’t you hear the general say, 

‘ ‘ Strike your tents and march away ! 
March — march — march — march — march 
march-march, 

Ma-arch — ma-arch, march away ! 



bugle-call to which 
British soldiers have set 
the above refrain was being 
sounded on the fifes as 
the players marched about 
the camp, and, ringing out 
sharp and shrill into the darkness, 
startled me into something like wake- 
fulness. 

But one sleeps soundly under can- 
vas, and I must have dropped off 
again, for the next thing I heard 
was my bearer’s muttered expostu- 


Il6 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


lations and entreaties as he tried to 
rouse me. 

I dozed again. It was not very 
unnatural, for it was but two o’clock 
in the morning. I seemed only just 
to have gone to bed. 

The bearer gave it up, and tried 
in despair another maneuver. I 
heard the rattle of a tea-cup and 
saucer close to my ear, combined 
with a piteous entreaty that “ he had 
brought his highness's tea. Would 
the Defender of the Poor deign to 
drink it ? ” 

But other words, in a somewhat 
surly, but truly British, tone, ming- 
ling with the Hindoostanee whine, 
roused me completely. 

“ Ugh ! Ain’t it just jolly cold ! ” 
Blessed if it ain’t fun a-waitin’ 
’ere till’e chooses to git up ! ” and 
there followed a stamping of feet and 
a rubbing of hands. 

I was thus made aware that the 
fatigue-party were without — their 
hands on the guy-ropes, ready to 
bring down my canvas house about 
my ears. 

I sprung up, allowed old Kodar 
Bux to clothe me, and buckling on 
my sword, emerged into the open. 


ANY PORT IN A DUST-STORM. II7 


It was dark and starlight, and 
intensely cold. Great fires, made 
of the straw which had served 
for the men’s bedding, lit up with a 
lurid glare the dark canopy of mango- 
trees forming the grove under which 
we were encamped, and illumined 
the hurrying figures, clad in every 
variety of uniform and costume, 
which flitted about the scene. Here 
and there were faintly discernible the 
dim outlines of some huge elephant 
or camel or kicking mule, unwilling 
to be loaded. Shouts, cries, orders, 
filled the air, mingling with the 
groaning of the camels and the 
neighing and the shrieking of horses 
and mules. 

The instant I had left my tent 
Kodar Bux and his coadjutors 
dragged the few articles of furni- 
ture it contained out on to the 
ground. With the speed, almost, of 
a conjuring trick, the little damp- 
bed collapsed, the bedding was 
rolled up into a bundle, a change 
came over the shape of the chair, 
table, and washstand, and the whole 
was thrown up on to the top of the 
bullock cart laden with trunks which 
stood awaiting it, the pile being sur- 


Il8 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


mounted by the kettle which had 
boiled my cup of tea. The said cup 
was stuffed into a kilter (or wicker 
basket such as hillmen, both in Switz- 
erland and in the Himalayas, carry 
on their backs), and the vehicle 
creaked and rumbled off, Kodar 
Bux in the rear. 

But I had not waited to see the com- 
pletion of this desolation. My place 
was in the lines, among the tents of 
my company, where all was bustle 
and apparent confusion. Each man, 
however, knew his place and his 
work. We had been many days 
already on the march, and this sort 
of thing had gone on every morning. 
The non-commissioned officers hur- 
ried from one group to another, 
urging, finding fault, hurrying and 
abusing the drabbles (natives) in 
charge of the mules and camels, for 
the latter alone seemed to know no 
discipline. 

The camels, ranged with heads 
turned inward, in a vast half-circle 
just outside the camping-ground, 
were moaning and bubbling in an- 
ticipation of the heavy tents in store 
for them to carry, and the mules 
were kicking and screaming and 


ANY PORT IN A DUST-STORM. II9 


breaking loose, while the men tried 
to load their rolls of kits on to them, 
one on each side the pack-saddle. 
Mules always seemed possessed. 

The stars had waned, and a gray- 
ness was breaking in the eastern 
horizon over the wide plain ere the 
tents were cleared and everything 
packed. 

Then suddenly, and apparently 
unexpectedly, a G was sounded by 
the bugler standing in the middle of 
the camp. 

The conjurer would not have been 
in it this time. As if by magic, at 
that sound the white village of can- 
vas fell suddenly to the ground ; 
where the neat line of tents had 
stood a moment before, were only 
billowy folds of white, with which 
the soldiers were struggling. 

Another half hour, however, and 
all was over. In the road that ran — 
white and dusty in the gray morning 
light — along one side of the mango- 
grove, the regiment was falling in for 
parade, the band at their head. 

The men hurried past me, not 
sorry to march off at a quick pace 
through the cold crisp air. But I 
was left behind, for I was on 


120 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


baggage-guard, and left lamenting, 
stamping up and down to warm my- 
self, with the collar of my cloak up. 

I heard the orders given, passing 
from company to company. The 
band struck up, and the regiment 
moved off ; the colonel, on his old 
gray Arab, riding on one side in 
front. 

My duty, as in charge of the bag- 
gage-guard, was to see all the bag- 
gage animals off the ground, and to 
leave it clear and clean. But even 
when the regiment had departed this 
was by no means easy. The crows, 
indeed, impudent and fearless, after 
the nature of crows in India, began 
to return to their customary haunts 
in the mango-trees above, on the 
look-out for pickings. From a col- 
lection of mud hovels hard by, yclept 
a village, appeared the ryof and his 
progeny, on the same errand as the 
crows. But some of the baggage 
animals remained. 

The mule-trains, tethered head to 
head, ambled off gradually, with here 
and there a halt and a skirmish be- 
tween man and beast, accompanied 
by flying kits and boxes, and much 
loss of temper. The camels, loaded 


ANY PORT IN A DUST-STORM. 121 


with tents, had been bidden to rise. 
This they had done with the noisy 
expostulations and grumblings with 
which a camel always gets through 
his work. Then they, too, had 
shambled off, tied head to tail, the 
rolls of tents swaying on their horny 
sides, and their great evil-looking 
heads and legs swinging about, on 
the watch for a bite or a kick. 

But the elephants had not started. 
It was growing late, and time to be 
off. It was nearly broad daylight, 
and getting warmer. Temperature 
changes rapidly in India even in the 
cold weather, and in not many hours 
it would be unpleasantly hot. 

‘‘What was the cause of the de- 
lay ?’' I inquired. I found it was one 
“Lord Canning,” an elephant, who 
had come into camp the evening be- 
fore with the commissariat supply of 
bread, and who was “bobbery” — 
that is to say, vicious. 

“Lord Canning” was a very fine- 
looking animal, nearly twelve feet 
high, and stood waving his trunk in 
a very self-satisfied manner, but I 
must say that I did not relish the 
look in his eye. It appeared his 
mahout had fallen ill, and had to go 


122 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


back, and he did not know or like 
his new one. 

Everyone was for giving him a 
wide berth, for allowing that ugly 
trunk of his full play, and for await- 
ing his pleasure till he should choose 
to stalk on after the other great 
beasts of the commissariat train, who 
had gone down the road. 

But I could not wait any longer 
for my lord, so, collecting my guard, 
we proceeded to clear the camping 
ground. The last I saw of “ Lord 
Canning he was waddling off under 
the trees, trumpeting and rattling the 
chains, which, in case it might be 
necessary to secure him, had been 
put round his hind legs. 

A short time after, I and my little 
band emerged from the shadow of 
the grove, and marched off after the 
rest. 

Though it was now daylight, the 
atmosphere was dim and heavy. 
The stars had all gone, but there 
was no sign of sunrise — generally 
such a gorgeous spectacle in tropical 
lands. 

Instead, there was a dark bank of 
cloud, dark with a darkness other 
than of departing night, which was 


ANY PORT IN A DUST-STORM. 123 


crowding up the northern horizon. 
As I looked, it seemed as though it 
was bearing down upon us. 

‘‘ Looks as though we shall have a 
storm ! ” I remarked to the corporal. 

Perhaps we’ll get on to coffee- 
shop before it breaks, sir,” was the 
rejoinder. 

Coffee-shop is the longed-for halt 
on the early morning march, where 
a native caterer, seated in the ditch 
at a half-way spot, doles out hot 
coffee, chuppatties^ and cheese to the 
hungry soldier, who has yet some 
miles to trudge ere he gets his break- 
fast. 

The men stepped out. But the 
clouds gained on us. They got red- 
der as they approached, with a lurid 
glow, which spread as thick as a 
London fog on the distant landscape 
and blotted it out. 

Then, on the still morning air, 
there burst, with an awful sudden- 
ness, a soughing and a sighing of 
the wind, springing from no one 
knew where. 

It grew and grew, louder and 
louder. With it came that bank of 
cloud, haze, or fog, whatever you 
like to term it. 


124 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


Then it burst upon us. It was 
sand — fine, driving, pelting sand and 
dust, which swept into our eyes and 
mouths and lungs, as if it would 
blind and stifle us. 

And with it came a darkness 
which literally might be felt. No 
one could see his hand before him. 
Soldiers, officers, natives, baggage- 
animals, and bullock-wagons stopped 
dead short where they stood. 

The wind roared overhead. Every- 
one sought for shelter of some kind, 
or else lay flat on his face. I was 
in luck. I felt something hard and 
solid on my left hand. I felt again 
— it seemed high. 

Evidently the mud wall of some 
field,’' I thought, and crouched under 
it eagerly. 

To my delight I found myself pro- 
tected to a certain extent from the 
storm, though I was still in utter 
darkness. The wind was strong, 
too ; it whizzed past my head every 
now and then, and at last it swept 
off my helmet, and whirled it into 
unknown space. 

But I sat under my mud wall, 
complacently feeling myself better 
off than most people. 


ANY PORT IN A DUST-STORM. I25 


Something dark blew past my 
face. In the dim light it seemed 
like the falling branch of a tree, and 
I congratulated myself still further 
on my cozy nook. 

How long the storm lasted I can- 
not tell. It seemed an age. But 
it departed as suddenly as it 
came. 

The air grew clearer and lighter 
to breathe. Objects in front became 
indistinctly visible. I could see I 
was sitting on the dusty roadside. 
Turning to look on one side, my 
bare head rested for a moment 
against the wall at my back. 

I started. It was warm ! I turned 
round and looked at it. It was black! 
I jumped up and looked up. It was 
an elephant, kneeling down, against 
which I had been sitting ; I looked 
again, and caught his eye — his wicked 
eye ! 

There was no mistaking it, Lord 
Canning” had been my shelter — my 
mud-wall ! 

The alacrity with which I sprang 
away from the resting-place I had 
so much appreciated, may be better 
imagined than described. I only 
felt safe when I found myself well 


126 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


out of reach of that wicked waving 
trunk. 

That was the wind I I said to 
myself, as I picked up my helmet. 

That was the falling branch ! 
Well, I’m very thankful it was not 
myself he picked up and threw 
about ! ” And I had reason to be. 




ilDrs. fle^le’0 IRurse.- 


M. T roopship Alligator had 
her steam up off Ports- 
mouth jetty ready to start 
for Bombay. Already, the 
day before, frequent special 
trains had gbrged her with 
troops, who now swarmed, almost 
unrecognizable as soldiers, in sea 
suits of blue serge and stocking caps, 
over her tiers of decks, and peered 
out of the hundreds of port-holes 
in her white sides. The jetty was 
crowded with spectators — some idly 
curious, some on business, some tear- 
ful ; but the farewells had mostly 
been said at the garrison towns, 
whence the embarking troops came. 
On the deck the band of the regi- 
ment made the chill autumn air ring 
with The girl I left behind me,” 



128 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


Auld lang syne,” and other cheerful 
melodies. 

The quarter-deck was crowded 
with officers in uniform, and ladies. 
The fair Southsea Islander ” was 
there in force. The arrival or de- 
parture of a troopship is always a 
field-day with her. She was bidding 
tender farewells to departing ‘‘ cou- 
sins,” who would probably be forgot- 
ten and replaced in a fortnight. Such 
is life by the waters of the Solent. 
Quartermasters, generals, and simi- 
lar brass-hatted officials were fussing 
about, the ship’s officers on duty 
emulating them in activity, while 
those unemployed were strolling 
about with shore friends, or taking 
mental stock of the new consignment 
of passengers, whose society they 
were to endure for the next month. 
After all the ship was their’s — their 
home ; and they resented somewhat 
the soldier-officers taking possession 
of it as if it belonged to them, and 
looking on that awe-inspiring per- 
sonage, the post-captain in command, 
as if he were no more than the man- 
ager of a Government military hotel. 
But of friction between the two ser- 


MRS. NEYLE'S nurse. 


129 


vices on board a troopship there is 
no end, and never will be. 

At last the great hawsers were un- 
fastened and the gangway removed. 
The Alligator was only connected with 
England by a narrow plank. Then, 
imperceptibly, her mighty screw be- 
gan to churn the waters, and gradually 
to make its vibrations felt through- 
out its length and breadth. Deafen- 
ing cheers from the soldiers lining 
the deck, bulwarks, and even the 
rigging, drowned the clang of the 
band, and re-echoed over the dock- 
yard, even across to the breezy com- 
mon. The Alligator was off, with 
her cargo of sixteen hundred souls. 
Some of these, fleeing from debts 
and misery, and, perhaps, even crime, 
were only too glad to cut themselves 
adrift from their native land. But 
over most there passed at least a 
vague feeling of sadness. Some had 
parted with all that life held dear to 
them, had severed ties that would 
never be re-knit. Even the most 
hardened, the most frivolous among 
the men were silent, and nearly all 
the hundred or so of women-folk 
wiped their eyes. 


130 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


No one, perhaps, was more sorry 
for himself than Captain the Honor- 
able Jack Wilderton, of the Queen’s 
Own Sharpshooters, as, clad in the 
somber dark-green uniform which has 
earned for the Queen’s the sobriquet 
of ‘‘ the sweeps,” he cocked his brim- 
less forage-cap a shade more on one 
side of his close-cropped head, and 
lit a cigarette. It did seem such 
deuced hard lines that one fellow 
should be born heir to a title and 
thousands, and another fellow, his 
brother, only a year or two younger, 
should have to scratch along in a 
perpetual state of hard-uppishness, 
on three or four paltry hundreds. 
Why, Jack asked himself bitterly, 
had they both been brought up in 
the same way, both allowed to run 
bills at Eton, both trained to look 
upon horses, peasants, yachts, and 
society, as necessary adjuncts of 
life ? 

Poor Jack ! he had been so happy 
in his regiment, he had found life so 
good at Aldershot (so convenient for 
town, you know), and now a stern 
parent had absolutely refused to pay 
up again on any consideration what- 
vSoever, and had forced Jack into ex- 


MRS. NEYLE’S nurse. 


I3I 


changing into the other battalion in 
India. No wonder he pitied himself 
exceedingly ! 

Two days later the Alligator had 
passed through that horrid Bay, 
and had sighted the cliffs of Spain. 
All who were ever going to do so had 
got over their sea-sickness, and were 
beginning to “ take notice/' as nurses 
say of babies. Friendships and 
enmities had been formed — so had 
whist-parties. There had, of course, 
been the inevitable fire-alarm, on the 
first afternoon at sea, while drilled 
both soldiers and sailors into their 
positions and duties in the event of 
such a catastrophe, while it scared 
the women-folk almost out of their 
sea-sickness. Life, both naval and 
military, was running on oiled wheels. 
The poor pestered paymaster 
breathed again, for peace even 
reigned in the saloon and in the 
ladies’ cabin. Everyone appeared to 
have done grumbling about the 
berths assigned them, and as with 
departing sea-sickness came return- 
ing appetites, everyone found less 
fault with the menus provided. Even 
the captains, who, “ neither fish, nor 
fowl, nor good red-herring,” are for- 


132 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


bidden to use either the field-officers’ 
bath or the one shared by the naval 
officers and subalterns, had had their 
ablutionary wants satisfactorily at- 
tended to. But, if the paymaster 
counted upon repose, he had 
reckoned without the nursery. 
There, in eleven berths, were packed 
seventeen souls, mothers and nurses, 
children and infants, with one bath 
and two washstands in the adjoining 
dressing room between them all, and 
two porthole windows. Talk of the 
cldture discussions, they were as noth- 
ing compared with the wordy war 
which raged between Mrs. Major 
Bosbury, who occupied the top berth 
facing one of the windows in ques- 
tion, in company with her two in- 
fants, aged one and two years, and 
Mrs. Neyle’s nurse, who slept in the 
berth underneath the said window, 
with that lady’s little girl. Now, as 
everyone knows, in a berth well 
underneath, though close to, an open 
porthole, you get no air whatever, 
while in one some distance off the 
opening, but on a level with it, you 
are fanned iis if with a perpetual 
punkah. It will be thus at once per- 
ceived that the question was a deli- 


MRS. NEYLE'S nurse. 


133 


cate one. Mrs. Major Bosbury got 
the ship’s doctor, who knew nothing 
whatever about children, to say that 
the night air of the Mediterranean 
was harmful to her babes. Mrs. 
Neyle and her nurse induced the 
medical officer in charge of the 
troops to lay down the law that 
seventeen souls boxed up in a cabin 
twelve feet by eighteen need some 
ventilation. The paymaster, like 
the speaker, had to call everyone to 
order and to close the discussion. 
This he did somewhat in favor of 
Mrs. Neyle’s nurse, a very pretty, 
nice-mannered little girl, by decree- 
ing that the window should remain 
partially open. 

But Mrs. Bosbury had her revenge. 
Two days later all the ladies instinc- 
tively drew their virtuous garments 
about them, and turned up their 
moral noses (including little Mrs. 
Frayle, the -grass widow) when they 
met Mrs. Neyle’s nurse on the com- 
panion. She was boycotted and sent 
to Coventry in the nursery. No one 
would turn on the bath for her, as 
they came out of it, to save time, or 
give her a hand with Queenie, who 
was fractious. At the children's 


134 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


meals, in the saloon, no one spoke to 
her, and she and Queenie might have 
starved but for the redoubled atten- 
tion of the waiters. Upstairs, on 
deck, where a space had been netted 
out for the children to play about in, 
to keep them from inundating the 
ship, if the unfortunate domestic sat 
down on a bench, the other nurses, 
even soldiers’ wives, temporarily act- 
ing as such, would get up and leave 
it. A ship is a perfect hotbed of 
gossip, people have so little to talk 
about. Therefore, there was chuck- 
ling in the smoking room and in the 
ladies’ cabin, and at that noisy dinner- 
table, where the jovial second lieu- 
tenant reigned, when it was bruited 
about that Mrs. Bosbury had caught 
Captain Neyle kissing his pretty nurse 
on the companion after lights out,” 
in flagrant defiance of the order hung 
up there, which enjoins officers and 
ladies not to loiter on the compan- 
ion.” 

Of course it must be true, all the 
occupants of the nursery averred, for 
the delinquent was in the habit of 
coming to bed so late that she dis- 
turbed everybody. None took the 
trouble to notice that her mistress 


MRS. NEYLE’s nurse. 


135 


seemed to share her predilection for 
late hours. 

Stewards have sharp ears, espe- 
cially when they are told off to a table 
so bristling with fun and good stories 
as the second lieutenant’s. Thus it 
happened that Captain Wilderton, lin- 
gering late on deck one night, and 
pausing to throw away his cigar near 
the pantry entrance to the saloon, 
heard a scuffle and a woman’s sup- 
pressed scream. An amatory stew- 
ard, who had ^been pestering Mrs. 
Neyle’s nurse with gastronomic at- 
tentions at meals, had lain in wait for 
her as she went past the pantry to 
bed, and had endeavored to imitate 
Captain Neyle’s example. 

Jack chivalrously interposed to as- 
sist beauty in distress. The steward 
slunk away to the lowermost region 
in the third deck, where his kind are 
located. But, to Jack’s embarrass- 
ment, the pretty nurse burst into 
tears so hysterical that he could do 
no more, and, indeed, was loth to do 
less, than lead her to the stern locker 
at the end of the saloon, and endea- 
vor to console her. It was very dim 
there, as only one lamp is allowed in 
the saloon at night ; yet, before they 


136 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


had sat many seconds on the locker, 
and Jack had heard her story amid 
her sobs, he was gazing into her face 
with intense surprise. Another few 
seconds, and he had risen, and was 
standing before her, his habitual self- 
possession entirely fled, and was 
apologizing profusely. She held out 
her hand in sign of forgiveness, and, 
at a sound of footsteps coming up 
from below, hurried off to her cabin. 
Jack involuntarily lifted his cap to 
her as she left him. 

Six months later, Captain Wilder- 
ton was returning from a shooting 
trip in a remote valley in Cashmere, 
laden with trophies of his chase. As 
he debouched with his coolies, tents, 
and followers, into a little “ riant 
green valley, from over a mountain 
pass, he found the white tents of a 
European encampment already in 
possession of the ground. A child, 
whose face seemed familiar, was 
playing with some servants on the 
banks of a stream, and, as he ap- 
proached, two ladies emerged from 
one of the tents. 

There was an instant of mutual 
amazement, followed by one of recog- 


MRS. NEYLe's nurse. 


137 


nition. Then the younger lady 
laughed and held out her hand. 

You remember me, Captain Wild- 
erton — I am Mrs. Neyle’s nurse ! 

Her companion came forward. 

Captain Wilderton, I can intro- 
duce you properly now. This is my 
husband’s sister ! ” 

Now there was no game, not even 
a black partridge, in all that “ riant 
valley. Yet Wilderton set up his 
tents alongside the Neyles’, and 
abode with them as long as they re- 
mained there. Then, when they 
marched again, he marched with 
them, cheerfully sacrificing his sport ; 
and it was only the expiration of his 
leave that induced him to quit them 
and Cashmere. 

Not long afterward, the English 
newspapers were full of that sad ac- 
cident in the Highlands, where Lord 
Wilderton’s eldest son accidentally 
shot himself, and died on a lonely 
moor ; and the Indian papers an- 
nounced the appointment, as A. D. C. 
to the Commander-in-Chief, of Cap- 
tain Wilderton of the 7th Sharp- 
shooters. 

Mrs. Major Bosbury took a house 
at Simla the ensuing hot weather. 


138 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


Soon after her arrival, to her intense 
delight, for she dearly loved associ- 
ating with the great in the land, she 
received a big card, inviting her 
to one of the Commander-in-Chief’s 
dinners. One A. D. C. received her 
in the hall ; another armed her into 
the drawing-room and presented her 
to His Excellency. Then a third 
came forward : 

How do you do, Mrs. Bosbury ? 
Think we’ve met before — on the 
Alligator, I think you know my 
wife ? ” 

Mrs. Bosbury found herself con- 
fronted by a pretty woman in a smart 
frock and good diamonds. 

‘‘ Don’t you remember me, Mrs. 
Bosbury?” she murmured sweetly. 
‘‘I was Mrs. Neyle’s nurse.” 




face in tbe fountain. 


NE of the earliest of my 
childhood’s recollections is 
of old Lady Vantreddert’s 
drawing-room at The Hon- 
eysuckles, a little cottage, 
ornee, in the village of 
which my father was rector. Every- 
thing in the room was of a bygone age, 
and a faint odor of pot-pourri pervaded 
the air. Over the mantelpiece there 
hung the sword and the faded sash 
of the late Sir Henry Vantreddert, 
while a daguerreotype of the de- 
parted general occupied the post of 
honor on the side-table between a 
Bombay workbox and a model of the 
Taj at Agra under a glass case. 

Otherwise, all The Honeysuckles 
was full of momentoes of their only 



140 IN TENT AND Bt^NGALOW. 


child — Dear Harry,” as we called 
him in the village. There were pic- 
tures of Harry in long curls, of 
Harry in petticoat^ of Harry in 
knickerbockers, Harry in sailor suits, 
Harry in his first uniform. Harry's 
old hat hung in the tiny hall, his dis- 
carded walking-sticks and whips 
made a brave show on the wall. 
One would not have been surprised 
to come across his ulster on a peg, 
or his umbrella in the umbrella stand. 
Harry’s bedroom was much the same 
as the day he left it, with old pipes 
and railway novels, tennis bats and 
boxing gloves strewn about, just as 
if he were expected home to-morrow. 

Which was very far from being the 
case. Harry was thousands of miles 
away, carving out his fortune with 
his sword in India, as his father had 
done before him, and his mother’s 
heart had to subsist on the long let- 
ters which, I am bound to say, he 
sent home with most filial regularity. 
They were nice, frank, cheery letters, 
with an undercurrent of affection for 
his mother running unmistakably 
through them ; I often wondered if 
Harry ever guessed for how large a 
share of the epistles the village came 


•THE FACE IN THE FOUNTAIN. I4I 


in, in the pride of his mother’s heart. 
Perhaps he would not have cared for 
it very much, had he known. 

One day, Indian mail day, we were 
alarmed at breakfast by a message 
to my father that Lady Vantreddert 
begged he would come up as soon as 
possible, as she very much wished to 
see him. 

‘‘ Was her ladyship ill ? ” my father 
asked the servant anxiously. 

‘‘ Ncft at all,” replied the old man. 
^^It’s a letter from Master Harry,” 
he added with a smile. Harry was 
“ Master Harry” still at The Honey- 
suckles, though he was top of. the 
lieutenants now. 

Perhaps, Ethel,” said my father, 
with a meaning smile, *‘you will run 
on ahead of me, and tell Lady Van- 
treddert that I will come directly I 
have written a letter for the early 
post.” 

I ran up, nothing loath — in one’s 
early teens one is delighted to be of 
importance. 

Lady Vantreddert sat up in bed, 
the familiar, well-covered thin letter 
spread on the bed before her. She 
looked rather scared. 

‘‘ Oh ! my dear child ! ” she ex- 


142 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. * 


claimed, I’m so glad to see some- 
one ! Something has happened.” 

She held out a little miniature, one 
of those miniatures done on ivoiy by. 
the native artists at Delhi. It was 
the head of a sweet-looking, fair- 
haired girl. The artist had certainly 
caught the coloring and complexion, 
if the expression was a trifle insipid. 
I felt relieved as I looked at it. I 
was afraid something had gone 
wrong with “ dear Harry.” • 

Who’s this. Lady Vantreddert ? ” 
I asked. 

It’s her — Gerta — pronounced 
Yerta, he says — mother was a Swede 
— that’s why she’s so fair. Oh, dear, 
dear ! to think of it all, a boy like 
that ” 

‘‘ Harry a boy. Lady Vantreddert ! 
Why, you told me the other day he 
was just double my age, and I’m 
thirteen ! ” 

Tut ! tut ! tut ! he’ll always be a 
boy to me— my boy — as long as I 
live, you know. But who would 
have thought it ? But yet I might 
have expected it — it’s but natural, it 
is ! ” and she wiped her eyes, till I 
got frightened again, and asked : 


THE FACE IN THE FOUNTAIN. I43 


‘‘ But Harry’s all right, isn’t he, 
Lady Vantreddert ? ” 

“ As well and as happy — overflow- 
ing with happiness. You shall hear 
how he writes — what he says about 
her — about Gerta.” 

Now, I never was very sentimental, 
and, at thirteen, not so at all. To 
this day I remember how bored I 
became by the reading of dear 
Harry’s ” effusions, honest and warm- 
hearted though they were, over his 
lady-love. For his lady-love she of 
the miniature was. 

‘ Dear Harry’s’ all right enough,” 
I remarked scornfully, after I had 
been relieved by my father, and had 
gone home ; “ he’s only going to be 
married, mamma.” 

The excitement of this portentous 
news lasted The Honeysuckles some 
time. Just as it was cooling down 
other news came, and of a very 
different type. 

It was nothing less than the news 
of the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny, 
flashed by the remorseless cable. 
Father saw the telegram first, and 
sent mother up to The Honeysuckles 
to break it to Lady Vantreddert. 


144 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


Mother remained there all day, and 
it was a little while before 1 saw 
Lady Vantreddert again. All the 
agonizing telegrams filtered through 
my parents to the poor anxious 
mother, round whose one pet lamb, 
shut up in the fort at Guramghur, a 
herd of merciless black demons in 
human form were raging. It was a 
miserable summer at The Honey- 
suckles, that of '57. Child as I was, 
I can remember the gloom which 
seemed to darken the gay little rose- 
covered cottage, and which was felt 
through the whole village. 

The news got worse. There was 
no sign or letter from Harry. We 
knew Guramghur had been relieved ; 
we had seen his name among those of 
the garrison who were rescued. He 
was alive, so why did he not write 
or telegraph, when he must have 
known what a state his poor mother 
must have been in on his ac- 
count ? 

At last came a wire, not from him, 
but about him. It was signed by a 
surgeon-majorat the hospital of some 
place which we had none of us ever 
heard of. 

Vantreddert has been ill — is bet- 


THE FACE IN THE FOUNTAIN. I45 


ter — sails for home in Shanghai^ 
September 9.” 

Words cannot describe Lady Van- 
treddert’s relief and delight. It 
almost seemed too much for her to 
hear, after all these months of torture, 
that her darling was'safe ; nay, more, 
that he was returning to her ! Unex- 
pected bliss ! 

I didn’t, of course, say anything 
to the poor soul to damp her joy, but 
I think it’s odd they send him home 
if he’s better. There’s plenty of 
work to be done yet, hunting down 
these fiends.” 

My mother agreed with my father. 
But no forebodings of any kind 
crossed Lady Vantreddert’s mind. 
Her boy was better, and was coming 
home. She could think and talk of 
nothing else. We watched in the 
paper the homeward vo5"age of the 
Shanghai^ bearing its precious burden. 
We allowed so many hours for the 
passage across the desert (it was 
before the days of the Suez Canal), 
and we watched the embarkation of 
mails and passengers at Alexandria 
for Southampton. As the vessel 
became due our excitement was 
beyond everything. Lady Vantred- 


146 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


dert was quite too much overcome to 
be able to think of driving into Bar- 
minster to meet her son when we got 
a wire telling us to expect him. My 
mother sat with her at The Honey- 
suckles, and my father drove off in 
his parsonical wagonette to Bar- 
minster Station. I accompanied him, 
all agog to see dear Harry,'’ whom 
I had been too young to remember. 

On Qur way through the village we 
saw the brass band collecting at the 
cross-roads to play the conquering 
hero home ; and the old gardener 
had erected a triumphal arch over 
the little gate leading into the gar- 
den. 

Tall — slim — very active — 
cheery,” I repeated to myself my 
father’s description of the expected 
one, as I sat on the box of the 
wagonette, holding the horse, and 
watched the passengers emerge from 
the station. 

There was no one that fitted the 
description. Women with children, 
women with many small parcels, an 
old man or two, an invalid helped 
along by an attendant, a few coun- 
try pumpkins,, a few towny-looking 
clerks — but no one who looked at all 


THE FACE IN THE FOUNTAIN. 147 


like a smart, long soldier, a returned 
hero. 

I became despairing. My father 
came out dejected. 

“There's some mistake. Harry's 
not come by this train." 

It was most disappointing. We 
drove home silently. In front of us, 
some way ahead, a fly dragged its 
slow course along. We were im- 
mensely surprised as we turned the 
corner, to see it pulling up at the 
gate of The Honeysuckles. 

“ It must be he, and we have over- 
looked him ! " cried my father ; and 
he jumped down and ran up to the 
fly, leaving me to drive after him. 

When I reached the gate I saw a 
man in the fly. He was neither 
young nor old, neither fair nor 
grizzled — a little of all. He had a 
vacant, vague look, and a broad grin 
on his face. 

At the fly-door stood a rather 
stern-faced, smooth-shaven man, 
evidently persuading the other to 
alight. 

“ I don't want to get out. Let 
me alone. He ! he ! he ! Oh ! 
don't ! You hurt me," and he 
looked as if he were going to cry. 


148 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


My father, as pale as death, inter- 
posed. 

For God’s sake ! let him wait 
a minute, while I go in and prepare 
them. Ethel,” he called back to me, 
drive back and stop the band ! ” 

I was glad enough to get away. 
The grinning, jabbering thing in the 
fly frightened me. 

It did not kill her quite, the poor 
mother, this dreadful home-coming. 

My boy has come back to me, 
indeed,” she told my mother, with 
pitiful resignation, after a few days 
— ‘‘ come back to me again, like a 
little child ; so it has pleased God ! ” 
Whether it was the fever, or the 
sunstroke, or the horrors of that 
siege, something had turned the 
poor brain, and, apparently, forever. 
He recognized no one, he did not 
remember the place, or the house. 
He seemed to forget everything as 
fast as it was said, and to be unable 
to carry on any continuous thought. 
Yet he was gentle and manageable, 
and always loving to his poor 
mother, the only person he seemed 
to recognize. 

If he had not known me,” she 
sobbed one day to my mother, “it 


THE FACE IN THE FOUNTAIN. I49 


would have killed me outright. But 
now I must bear up and live for him, 
and tend him as long as I am able.’* 

I soon got over my alarm of poor 
Harry, who seemed to like to be 
with me. It was like talking to a 
big-overgrown child. 

One day, however, I had a great 
fright. 

Lady Vantreddert had asked me 
to look for something in her desk in 
her bedroom. While I was doing 
so, Harry wandered in, and began 
watching me in his vague way. 

Suddenly I came across the minia- 
ture of Gerta I had seen that morn- 
ing, which seemed so long ago, on 
Lady Vantreddert’s bed. 

Harry noticed it too, and for a 
second or two stood in silence. Then 
he clasped his head with his hand, as 
if making some mighty mental effort, 
and a marvelous change came over 
his face. His eyes flashed, his 
breast heaved, and he looked more 
sane than I had ever seen him. 

‘‘ Oh ! my God ! my God ! it is 
she. It is Gerta — my lost Gerta,” 
he cried, passionately pressing the 
picture to his lips. “ Ah ! if I knew 
that she was lost — was dead. She 


150 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


is lost to me ! If I only knew she 
were at rest ! To think those sweet 
lips — that pretty face — should be 
the sport — the toy of that incarnate 
fiend ! My God ! it is too much ” 

He sank exhausted on the bed in 
a paroxysm of grief. 

Years passed by. I had married 
and left the village, in the church- 
yard of which Lady Vantreddert 
and her poor boy had long been at 
rest. I had married a soldier, and 
in the natural course of things found 
myself with my husband in India. 
Jim is an enthusiastic sportsman, 
and likes me to accompany him on 
his shooting expeditions. 

One day, toward the beginning of 
the hot weather, we drove out many 
miles from the station where we 
were then quartered, into a neigh- 
boring rajah’s territory, intent on 
shooting antelope. 

The potentate in whose domain 
we found ourselves was hardly a 
shining light in the way of a ruler or 
a statesman, but his wide stretches 
of uncultivated country afforded ex- 
cellent sport. Moreover, he was 
exceedingly anxious to be on good 


THE FACE IN THE FOUNTAIN. 151 


terms with the British, to whose in- 
fluence he entirely owed his position. 
His predecessor, that bloodthirsty 
miscreant who was the prime mover 
in the seige of Guramghur and the 
hideous massacre of the ladies and 
children at Dustypore, had met with 
his deserts at the avenging hands of 
Havelock and Outram, and the pre- 
sent Rajah had been enthroned in his 
stead. 

To any British officer shooting in 
his territory, the Rajah hospitably 
offered lodging in his summer palace 
of Bebipore, where he hardly ever 
lived. So thither, after the manner 
of Indian travelers, we sent on ahead 
our food, our cooking pots, our ser- 
vants, and our bedding, and ad- 
journed there ourselves when the 
day’s sport was over. 

Bebipore was a glorious specimen 
of the highest type of Hindoo archi- 
tecture. It was built of salmon-col- 
ored stone, with richly carved loggia, 
balconies, and pillared halls. But 
it was falling fast into ruins. The 
formally laid-out garden was over- 
grown and matted, the interior of the 
palace filthy, and well-nigh given up 
to owls and flying foxes. 


152 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


‘‘ What a pity to let this lovely 
place fall into such decay,” said I to 
Jim as we sat on the terrace after 
dinner, in the rich calm light of a 
great full moon. It might be a 
perfect paradise, you know.” 

Ugh ! I don’t know,” muttered 
Jim, from the depths of a huge fold- 
ing camp-chair. There are any- 
thing but memories of Paradise con- 
nected with it, you know. It was 
the favorite abode of that brute the 
late Rajah, who dyed his hands in so 
much European blood, you remem- 
ber.” 

I shuddered, and rose. 

‘‘ Indeed I do, and it quite takes 
the glamour off the spot. A serpent in 
the garden of Eden, indeed ! Well, 
I’ll take a little turn before I go to 
bed. The moon’s so bright. I’m not 
afraid of meeting a real snake.” 

The only answer was a slight snore 
from the depths of the camp-chair — 
Jim had had a heavy day after the 
black buck. 

If the moonlight was unearthly 
bright, as only tropical moonlight 
can be, the shadows it cast were of 
inky blackness, I strolled along the 
straight paths, between a tangle of 


THE FACE IN THE FOUNTAIN. 153 


orange and pomegranate trees, mat- 
ted together with masses of creepers. 
In the center of the grounds I came 
on one of those oblong artificial 
ponds or tanks so dear to the native 
taste. It was surrounded by a low 
masonry parapet, and from each 
corner jets of water were intended to 
spout from the brickwork. But the 
whole thing was in ruins, and as 
silent as the grave, lying like a huge 
mirror, a dazzling spot among the 
surrounding dark shrubberies. 

I paused a few seconds, and gazed 
into the shining depths. 

The night was still save for the 
whirring of the crickets in the trees 
and the occasional unearthly yell 
of a jackal in the distance. Not the 
faintest breeze ruffled the surface of 
the tank, which was so placid that I 
could distinctly see myself as I leant 
over the edge. 

Suddenly I gave a start. 

Someone else was looking too. 
Over my shoulder there was another 
face reflected — and oh, what a face ! 
I see it now sometimes in a night- 
mare. 

It was the face of a native — 
swarthy, beetle-browed, keen-eyed, 


154 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


gazing from beneath a white turban 
with a cunning malignity that froze 
the marrow in my bones. 

With a cry of horror, I turned 
round to see who was there. 

There was no one. 

The path was deserted and silent. 
Not even a rustle in the bushes broke 
on the night air, or betrayed a dis- 
appearing form. I looked round 
wildly for a moment, and then I fled, 
as fast as I could run, back to the 
palace, and into my room, and, not 
stopping till I had made fast the 
door, sank breathless on to the bed 
where Jim lay snoring peacefull}". 

I had a hideous night, haunted by 
blood-curdling dreams of that awful 
face, which I somehow associated 
with the wicked Rajah of evil mem- 
ory, the late inhabitant of the place. 
I can assure you I was not sorry to 
find myself driving back into canton- 
ments next morning. 

I had not told Jim of my fright. 
He had been asleep during the first 
flush of my excitement, and when I 
thought the matter over in broad 
daylight, and in a calmer mood, I 
was dreadfully afraid he would chaff 
me about it ; for Jim has no imagi- 


THE FACE IN THE FOUNTAIN. 155 


nation, and absolutely no belief in the 
supernatural. 

However, I felt very sorry I had 
not risked the chaff when, some weeks 
later, Jim proposed another expedi- 
tion to Bebipore. It was too late 
now, however, and I could only put 
as cheerful a face on the matter as 
possible, promising myself that no 
power on earth should induce me to 
wander near that fearful tank again. 

But I had counted without my 
host, however. I kept within doors 
all the evening, quaking secretly in 
my shoes, and fearing to see that 
face looking out upon me from every 
dark nook of the pillared hall or the 
lofty chambers. I took care that 
Jim should not leave me for a second, 
and I think, on the whole, I played 
my part bravely, for he never sus- 
pected how nervous I was. 

But, on the morrow, as we sat 
having our early tea on the terrace 
before setting out shooting, there 
was a hue and cry among the servants 
for Nip, my little terrier, who was 
missing. 

Go and call down in the garden, 
Ethel,” suggested Jim. 

I was torn asunder between fear 


156 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


of losing Nip and dread of revisiting 
that horrible tank. 

‘‘You come with me, Jim,” I re- 
plied. “ You — you — you can whistle 
so much louder than I can.” 

Jim strolled off, cigar in mouth, 
and I followed. 

Of course he went straight down 
to the tank, and then — oh, horror ! — 
seated himself on the edge of the 
parapet and began quite uncon- 
cernedly to call Nip. 

I couldn’t call ; my voice would 
have failed me, different though the 
scene was in daylight. The water, 
for instance, looked quite deep and 
dark, and yet it was evidently 
shallower than it had been at our 
last visit, for there had been no rain 
and the country was drying up 
fast. 

I noticed this as I leant over the 
edge, saying to myself that the vision 
of that night must have been all 
fancy. Yet my hand was trembling 
so as I tried to fasten my brooch, 
which had come undone, that the 
latter slipped from my grasp and 
splashed into the water, making me 
start. 

“Oh, Jim!” I cried, “my 


THE FACE IN THE FOUNTAIN. 157 


mother’s brooch, with baby’s hair in 
it ! I must find it ! ” 

I had forgotten all my terror now 
in real grief, for that little yellow 
lock inside the brooch was all that 
was left to me of the little form 
which for a few short months had 
gladdened our Indian home. 

“ We’ll get it directly,” said Jim, all 
alacrity, and thrusting in his stick. 

There’s not a foot of water in the 
tank. Never knew such a dry sea- 
son. Go and call some of the gar- 
deners ; we’ll make them search, and 
I’ll stand here to mark the spot.” 

Anxious as I was to get my brooch 
back, I was not sorry to keep away 
from the dreaded spot, so sat ex- 
pectant on the terrace. 

Presently our bearer came run- 
ning. He put my little treasure safe, 
but muddy, into my hand and then 
hurried away again in the direction 
of the tank. Some time elapsed and 
Jim did not appear. What could he 
be doing ? 

At last I descried him coming up 
the walk, followed by a crowd of 
natives, servants, gardeners, hangers- 
on. Evidently something had hap- 
pened, for Jim looked grave. 


158 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


“ Very rum thing,” he said, sitting 
down by me on the terrace. “ What 
do you think we found when looking 
for your brooch ? A skeleton — a 
woman’s skeleton, I think — lying in 
the mud. This ring was on the third 
finger of the left hand ” 

He was interrupted by the head- 
man in charge of the place, who 
made his way through the crowd, 
followed by a toothless old crone, 
and flung himself at our feet. 

May it please your Highness, the 
defender of the poor, this, the grand- 
mother of the gardener, knows all. 
She says the bones are those of the 
beautiful white lady with hair like 
gold, whom the late Rajah (whom 
may the devils destroy !)brought here 
alive after he had killed all the other 
white ladies at Dustypore. He loved 
her much, the Rajah. She was to 
have been his favorite wife ; but this 
old woman, who had charge of her, 
slept heavily one night, and the Miss 
Sahib had gone when she awoke. 
No one ever saw her again. But the 
old grandmother says that was the 
ring she wore.” 

Jim and I looked at each other. 


I 


THE FACE IN THE FOUNTAIN. 159 


It was a dark tale, but it sounded 
true. 

I twiddled the ring in my fingers. 

“It looks of English make,” said 
Jim. 

“ There is something written on 
it,” said I, peering intently, and rub- 
bing the dirt off. 

Then, suddenly, a memory came 
back of the long ago days of my 
childhood in the old village at home, 
of old Lady Vantreddert, and of her 
“dear Harry.” 

For on the ring I read : “ From 
Harry to Gerta ! ” 




^be Ibuntina of tbe fiDajor. 


SAHIB ” was the best 
polo pony I ever had, and 
he was cursed with the 
most fiendish temper it has 
ever been my ill-luck to 
come across in four-footed 
beast. His very appearance was 
Satanic; I have his portrait before me 
now, drawn in water colors, by one 
‘^Mummoo, painter,” as he signs his 
production — a white turbaned Hin- 
doo, who made the round of the Euro- 
pean stables of the station, painting 
likenesses of favorite steeds for a few 
rupees apiece. Mummoo certainly 
had a clever knack in drawing horse 
flesh, though hardly so successful 
with the human form divine, as was 
to be seen when he attempted to 
mount the noble owner upon some 



THE HUNTING OF THE MAJOR. l6l 


pet quadruped. The Sahib/’ how- 
ever, stands alone in his glory, for, in 
good earnest, no one, except his own 
particular groom, cared to approach 
him in his stable. Mummoo has 
drawn him standing on what is in- 
tended to be the yellow-brown grass 
of the country, with which we bed 
down horses in India. But vegeta- 
tion was not Mummoo’s forte, A 
polo-ball and stick lie on the bedding 
and the background is the gray- 
washed wall of the stable, with a 
square-paned window in the center. 
This Mummoo probably copied from 
some picture in an English sporting 
paper, such as he was very fond of 
getting hold of, for no impecunious 
sub, such as I was when I owned 
the Sahib,” ever boasted a stable 
in India as grand as that. A rude 
row of mud huts, thatched with grass, 
divided by low mud walls into stalls, 
with a rough log as a barrier before 
each and a grass screen to keep the 
sun out, such is the average Indian 
stable, though quite good enough for 
even valuable race-horses. Pigs are 
better lodged in England ; but in 
India the grooms fare worse than the 
horses. 


i 62 in tent and bungalow. 


Mummoo could only draw horses 
in profile and on the near side. But 
he had caught ‘‘ the Sahib’s ” char- 
acteristics to a T.” His clean 
white legs, with plenty of bone below 
the knee, his powerful neck and 
shoulders, piebald, red, and white, 
his wicked white face and dilated 
nostrils, his knowing red ears, and 
his well-ribbed up red back and 
strong quarters. 

In those days we subs of the 

Onety-oneth ” bestowed more pains 
on the hogging of our ponies’ names 
than on the cultivation of our own 
mustaches. In his idle hours, any 
fellow who was known to be a good 
hogger was always in request to 
come round and do so-and-so’s new 
‘‘tat,” short for tattoo^ anglice pony. 
We scorned even to leave an “ after- 
dinner curl ” or “mounting lock ” at 
the saddle bow (though I cannot say 
we did not ever need it), and bent 
lovingly over the little beast’s necks, 
finishing them off with a sharp fine 
scissors, after the manner of the 
most experienced coiffeurs, 

I bought “the Sahib” at Batasar 
fair. This is a spring gathering 
in the Northwest provinces, well- 


THE HUNTING OF THE MAJOR. 163 


known to all in search of horses and 
ponies. It takes the form of a vast 
camp on a plain outside the town, 
and in the motley throng which, all 
the three days of the fair, crowd up 
and down the ranks of the tethered 
horses, high civilian officials jostle 
wild, unkempt Cabool dealers with 
treacherous Tartar eyes ; remount 
officers on the buy for troop horses 
elbow subs after polo ponies ; and 
village zemindars, or head-men, 
crowd with country-bred tattoos for 
sale. The quadrupeds are quite as 
diverse as the buyers and sellers. In 
the long ranks you find horses that 
have known better days, poor beasts, 
Arabs or “Walers” cast from the 
troops, side by side with wild-look- 
ing ponies from the frontier or coun- 
try-breds from the plains. There 
are lines of camels, too, for sale, 
either as beasts of burden or for 
riding purposes, and some elephants ; 
the trumpeting, neighing, squealing, 
and kicking, and occasional stamped- 
ing, pass description. 

Though I had marked the Sahib ” 
for mine own from the first moment 
my eyes fell on his legs and shoul- 
ders, it took me two days to bargain 


i 64 in tent and bungalow. 


with the dealer for him. My groom, 
Mohun, led the pony toward my 
tent, and I ordered him to be 
saddled, and thought I would try my 
new purchase in the cool of the 
evening. 

But I found I was altogether mis- 
taken, for the pony was of quite a 
different opinion, and, at first, showed 
himself so much the better fellow of 
the two, that I christened him ‘Hhe 
Sahib,” or “ the Master,” on the spot. 

“ Your Highness has got a bob- 
bery wallah ” (a naughty fellow), re- 
marked Mohun, consolingly, as he 
hung on to the bridle like grim 
death, suffering himself to be 
dragged along in the sand by the 
pony, while I hopped cautiously 
alongside, watching for an auspicious 
moment to throw my leg over him. 
But that wicked eye, peering at us 
so satanically out of its corner, that 
ever-ready hoof, were too much for 
us ; we were compelled to resort to 
stratagem. One native flung a cloth 
over ‘‘the Sahib’s” face, and blind- 
folded him, while another seized and 
help up one of his fore-feet. In an 
instant I was up, and then, “Let 
go ! ” and we were off ! 


THE HUNTING OF THE MAJOR. 165 


No, I wasn’t, though, hard as ^^the 
Sahib ” tried to throw me. He had 
found his master, and from that mo- 
ment, when once on his back, I never 
had any trouble with him. 

What a pony he was on the polo- 
ground ! I verily believe he loved 
the game as much as I did. No jib- 
bing or skulking with him, as with 
some. No having to blindfold him 
to get him to cross the fateful 
boundary on to the ground. The 
Sahib,” stretched out to his top- 
speed, would follow with his keen 
eye every turn and stroke of the ball, 
and twist, and turn, and pull up 
short, like a pony of half his size and 
power. 

‘‘ The Sahib ” had great discrimi- 
nation of character, too, and loved a 
joke, as you will hear. There was a 
certain major in the ‘‘ Onety-oneth,” 
whom we will call Blazeby, a con- 
ceited Jack-in-office, exceedingly full 
of his own dignity. One day, as we 
were returning to barracks from an 
adjutant’s parade, we beheld Major 
Blazeby, in full uniform, mounted 
grandly on his charger, going round 
the ba -acks on some duty. Close to 
the spot where the parade was dis- 


l66 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


missed, Mohun was waiting with 
the Sahib " to carry me back to my 
bungalow (for in India no one ever 
dreams of walking a yard if he can 
help it, and I lived at least a quarter 
of a mile off). At the Sahib’s ” head 
patiently squatted the groom holding 
the bridle, when the major and his 
charger came suddenly round the 
corner in full view of the whole 
regiment. The sight raised the 
Sahib’s ” ire. With a kick and a 
plunge he freed himself from the 
sleepy groom, and went for the 
major. He tore up to him, kicking 
and squealing, and showing his teeth. 
Then he turned sharp round and 
kicked at the charger, and then he 
came on again and bit at the major’s 
legs. The latter tried to drive him 
off with his cutting-whip ; he even 
beat at him with his scabbard, but 
the Sahib ” was undaunted. Na- 
tives rushed up in every direction 
and attempted to capture him ; but 
the pony would waltz round and un- 
expectedly scatter them with a sud- 
den flinging up of his heels. 

Then the major turned and fled. 
But ‘‘ the Sahib ” followed. It was 
a ludicrous sight — the riderless pony 


THE HUNTING OF THE MAJOR. 167 


SO small, the major on his big Waler 
mare so gorgeous. We subs en- 
joyed it immensely. The major 
dodged the pony round the barrack 
building ; but size told. The lesser 
animal could turn the quickest, and 
came on with a vicious squeal. The 
major was utterly discomfited. After 
a narrow escape of his breeches 
from the pony’s teeth, he dismounted 
hastily and sought shelter in a bar- 
rack-room, while the honor of war 
remained with ‘^the Sahib.” 

We drank his good health that 
night at mess, while Blazeby looked 
daggers at us over his high collar, 
for we all felt we owed “ the Sahib ” 
a debt of gratitude for taking the 
major down a peg. 




^bat Cbrietmas at Curri*« 
pore. 


S Queen ie lay back in an 
armchair she let the ayah 
put the shoes and stock- 
ings on to her pretty pink 
feet. Though the shoes 
were only threes, Queenie 
was out of the nursery — indeed, 
nearly out of her teens. But this 
was in India, where lazy, grown-up 
people are washed and dressed like 
babies, and Queenie was pondering 
other things than dolls. 

When her ayah had arrayed her 
in her neat little dark riding-habit, 
Queenie took up her whip and gloves, 
and sauntered through the curtains 
into the veranda. It was 7 a. m., and 
though the air was crisp and cool 



CHRISTMAS AT CURRIPORE. 169 


(there had been the nearest possible 
approach to a frost between 2 and 4), 
the sun was shining hotly, and 
Queenie wore that most hideous of 
headgears, a pith helmet, which, 
however, failed to make her look 
plain. The smoke was rising straight 
and evil-smelling from the long line 
of servants’ huts in the corner of 
the compound, betokening the culi- 
nary operations for the day’s one 
meal. In the veranda the gardener, 
meagerly attired in a dirty waist- 
cloth, was watering Mrs. Moulton’s 
flower-pots, taking especial care of 
her violets, the most delicate and 
valuable of her floral possessions. 
Outside, the garden was a blaze of 
crimson bougainvilleas climbing up 
the stems of the mango trees, of 
roses of all kinds, of climbing ala- 
mandas and giant convolvuli. 
Greedy crows cawed expectantly in 
the branches above the detached 
cook-house, and pert little crested 
hoo-poos hopped about the drive, 
and cocked their heads to look at 
Queenie as she stood on the steps. 

Down the tree-planted mall, out- 
side the gateless entrance, kicking 
up the dust which lay thick on either 


170 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


side the central macadam, came first, 
a shambling camel, bearing a native 
cavalry orderly in gay turban, then a 
flock of gaunt goats, picking up a 
scant meal of dry leaves and grass. 
Next, there was a sound of a horse’s 
hoofs. A smart little polo-pony with 
a hogged mane came cantering up 
the drive at a hand-gallop, and its 
rider pulled up in front of the bunga- 
low, and threw the reins to a breath- 
less groom who had flown behind 
him. 

A merry Christmas to you. Miss 
Quinlan.” 

He was a tall, thin man, over thirty, 
with dark interesting eyes, dressed 
in a tweed riding suit, and a pitch 
helmet. 

‘‘ Don’t ! ” said Queenie. It’s a 
mockery ! It doesn’t seem a bit like 
Christmas !” 

But look at your decorations ! ” 
objected her companion, flicking with 
the end of his cane the festoons of 
marigolds, hanging by their stalks, 
with which the servants had adorned 
the arches of the veranda and made 
an arch over the gate. 

“ And we’ve decorated the church 
with scarlet poinsettias ! ” Queenie 


CHRISTMAS AT CURRIPORE. 171 


pursued. “ The whole thing is a 
sham.” 

“ Not to me,” said her companion, 
looking up at the dainty figure on the 
steps, “ I am having a very merry 
Christmas,” he added, in a meaning 
tone, and with a glance of his dark 
eyes to correspond. 

You are very late this morning,” 
was all Queenie vouchsafed. “ The 
Baby has been waiting ages. Here 
idher lao ! ” and she beckoned to a 
groom squatting on the drive, who 
brought up a pretty little bay Arab, as 
smart and fresh as paint. 

Her companion put her up, and 
then lingered, perhaps an unneces- 
sary time, settling her little foot in 
the stirrup. 

I’m so sorry,” he apologized. 
‘‘ It was not my fault. Ruffleby — he 
and I share a bungalow, you know 
— has had a friend turn up by the 
morning mail, and, as Ruffleby was 
on duty, I had to take him over to the 
mess and give him some chota hazari 
[little breakfast].” 

Then he jumped on to the polo- 
pony, and, telling the grooms to wait 
where they were for them, they passed 
out through the gate. 


172 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


Mrs. Moulton, in the intervals of 
housekeeping, the giving out stores 
from the store-room in the corner of 
the veranda, and wrangling with the 
white-robed cook over his peculations, 
watched them ride down the mall in 
the deep dust under the millingtonia 
trees, which scented the air with their 
white blossoms. 

“ It’s an awful responsibility hav- 
ing a pretty girl like Queenie Quin- 
lan, so young, so new to India, to 
stay ! But, of course, I’d do any- 
thing for Joe’s greatest friend — and 
Arthur Appleton is so gone over her, 
poor fellow ! I wish I knew, I wish 
I did, what she really thinks about 
him. Arthur’s much too good a 
fellow to be trifled with.” 

And Mrs. Moulton turned away to 
inspect her progeny, just starting for 
their morning walk — big boy on pony, 
little girls in panniers on another, lit- 
tle boy in perambulator, and small 
baby laid out flat on a kind of cushion 
in his ayah’s arms — quite a proces- 
sion, and each with at least one ser- 
vant in charge of its tiny self. 

Captain Appleton and Miss Quin- 
lan cantered down the mall, meeting 
many riders and several corteges of 


CHRISTMAS AT CURRIPORE. 173 


children, for, being Christmas Day, 
the Government offices were shut, 
and the parade-grounds deserted. 
Queenie was lively as a cricket. A 
gallop round the racecourse brought 
a flush of color into her cheeks, of 
which some months of India had 
robbed them. But Appleton was 
rather silent and engrossed. 

“ You are coming to dine to- 
night ? he asked, as he took her 
home again. “ We always have the 
regimental ladies to dine at mess on 
Christmas Day, and of course you 
come with Mrs. Moulton. 

Of course ! cried Queenie. 
“ It will be such fun dining at mess ! ” 
In the drawing-room she found 
Mrs. Moulton engaged in receiving 
dollies.’' In honor of the Sahib’s 
big day,” all the establishment, clad 
in rustling white garments, advanced 
to present gifts — flowers, vegetables, 
groceries, cakes, and sweetmeats — in 
return for which they received the 
Indian equivalent of Christmas boxes. 

Then they went to breakfast, and, 
after breakfast, while the Moulton 
babies shouted and wrangled over 
their Christmas presents in the back 
veranda, which represents the day- 


174 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


nursery in Anglo-Indian households, 
Queenie heard the sound of “ Church 
Bells played in the barracks by the 
band, and knew it was nearly church 
time. 

She put on her best frock, and 
picked a Gloire ’’ rose for the front 
of her dress. The gaunt barn of the 
station church was but a quarter of a 
mile off, but, like everyone else, she 
and Mrs. Moulton drove thither. 
Under the great portico they waited 
to greet their acquaintance, and to 
watch the troops march up, the band 
playing and the pipers at their head. 

The men passed in, but the officers 
waited without in knot still the last 
moment. Queenie found Captain 
Appleton close behind her, greeting 
her with a grave salute. 

The church was gay with ever- 
greens and poinsettias ; the punkahs 
had disappeared for a few brief weeks. 
The band formed the choir, and sang 
and played lustily. The lofty bare 
building rang again with the familiar 
strains of ‘‘ Hark ! the herald,*' till 
the voices drowned the brass instru- 
ments. All sorts of people were in 
church, who never went there as a rule, 
because it was Christmas Day. Not 


CHRISTMAS AT CURRIPORE. I 75 


only the officers on duty, who were 
obliged, but civilian officials who 
know no ecclesiastical laws, and, far 
down by the doorway, a knot of Eura- 
sian shopkeepers and clerks, desirous 
of keeping up their British nation- 
ality. 

At intervals through the sermon 
Queenie looked at Appleton’s clear- 
cut profile as he sat in one of the 
front seats with the other officers, 
but her reflections over him were not 
complimentary. 

He’s grown very grave and dull 
down here, at Curripore ! He was 
ever so much jollier in the hills last 
season. Yet I know he got Mrs. 
Moulton to ask me to stay with her 
while papa was away in camp. I 
wonder what’s come to him ! He 
was so jolly at the picnics at Douglas- 
dale, and the boating an the lake ! ” 

She was wrong in one way. Apple- 
ton was never what you cah jolly. 
He was always rather a quiet, reserved 
man, though Miss Quinlan had found 
him interesting enough to single out 
from among her many admirers, as 
her favorite partner at tennis and 
dances during the last season at 
Maini Tal. His was a deep, strong 


176 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW.” 


nature, and he was desperately in 
love. Moreover, just now, he was 
harassed and tortured with anxiety 
as to Queenie’s real feelings toward 
him. Her stay at Curripore was 
drawing to a close. He felt he 
could bear the uncertainty no 
longer. 

After church, as he walked over 
to the barrack-room of his company, 
where the heavy Christmas festivities 
in the gayly decorated room, both 
the result of days of preparation on 
the part of the men, were being in- 
augurated with much drinking of the 
captain's health in the liquor he had 
provided, he came to a decision. As 
the roof rang with cheers, and they 
sang, He’s a jolly good fellow ! ” 
in his honor, the captain forced rather 
a sad smile. 

I will ask her to-night,” he said 
to himself ; I will ask her to- 
night. ” 

Twice the ayah had peeped in 
through the curtain to see if the 
‘‘ Miss Sahib ” was ready to dress for 
dinner. But Queenie lay still on her 
bed reading a letter brought by the 
letter orderly from the evening post. 
It ran : 


CHRISTMAS AT CURRIPORE. 177 


‘‘My Own Darling Queenie : 
I do wish you would write oftener. 
You don’t know how I long for your 
letters. It seems ages since I bade 
good-by to you at Bombay — years 
since that jolly voyage, that so utterly 
did for me, ended. I sit and stare 
at your photo, and write to you, to 
try and comfort myself. And then I 
get nearly mad when I think how 
long we have to wait. Nearly a year 
more. Your father has behaved very 
cruelly and harshly, I must say. 
But this is Chistmas — we are on the 
edge of a new year, which will see 
us happy — I won’t grumble. But, 
there’s a darling, do write me a nice 
long letter, telling me all about your 
sweet little self.” 

And so on, and so on. The reader 
can fill in, ad lihitum^ from his or 
her private experience of such let- 
ters. 

A vision rose before Queenie’s 
face of a good-looking, boyish face, 
with frank eyes of a Saxon blue, and 
she heard the ring of a merry laugh. 
She smiled complacently, and then 
she pouted. 

“ What a bother men are ! Always 
so impatient ! I’m sure I’m in no 
hurry to be married. Lionel’s a 
dear, darling boy, and I love hini 


178 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


awfully, but — I’m having a very good 
time.” 

And she called the ayah to come 
and dress her in her white tulle frock, 
and to get her a fresh ‘^ Gloire” to 
put in her golden coils of hair. 

Outside the bungalow shared by 
Captain Appleton and Lieutenant 
Rufheby, the sporting character of 
the regiment, was waiting, about 
7. 45 p. M., a venerable gray arab, 
that had once been somebody’s 
charger, held by a groom armed with 
a lantern. Ruffleby and Appleton 
stood in the veranda in mess dress, 
the latter impatient. 

What an age the fellow is ! The 
first bugle went ever so long ago ! 
I don’t want to be late.” 

‘‘ I daresay you don’t,” replied 
Ruffleby — who loved horses, and 
never spoke to a lady, if he could 
help it — with a wicked look. And 
I don’t want to get cold soup ! ” 

“ What on earth’s he doing ? ” asked 
Appleton. 

Writing a letter to his wife to 
catch the home mail ! That’s what 
comes of having made an ass of your- 
self in the matrimonial line at such 
an early age, and ” 


CHRISTMAS AT CURRIPORE. I 79 


Having two babies down with the 
measles ! interrupted Ruffleby’s 
guest, with a cheery laugh, as he 
emerged from the bungalow. 

Awfully sorry, my dear fellows ! ” 
Get up on ^ the omnibus,’ old 
man,” cried Ruffleby, wherewith they 
all three mounted the ancient quad- 
ruped who rejoiced in that sobriquet 
and shambled off to the mess, the 
groom running before with a lantern, 
whereby all three saved the polish 
on their mess boots. 

Of course, Appleton had arranged 
matters. Major Spanks took in 
Miss' Quinlan, for there were, of 
course, only ladies enough for just 
the senior officers. But she found 
Captain Appleton sitting on her 
other side. Queenie was very gay, 
and he had a good time. Major 
Spanks, a man of discernment, who 
had once been young, devoted him- 
self with much attention to his din- 
ner, criticising the specially-fattened 
turkey, and the khausamah’s efforts 
in plum-pudding and mince-meat, and 
the mess-president’s taste in tinned 
sausages, asparagus, and such de- 
lights. The Major and the Colonel 
sat in the middle of the long table, 


l8o IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


the few ladies near them. At each 
end was a sea of mess-jackets, but 
the two sides were almost hidden 
frem each other by a long line of 
mess-plate, trophies of racing and 
promotion. 

At length the cloth was removed, 
and the dark mahogany, an heirloom 
of the corps, stood revealed in all its 
swarthy beauty, glistening with plate; 
there was a moment’s pause : 

Mr. Vice, the Queen,” said the 
mess-president at one end, standing 
up and nodding to the vice president 
at the other. 

Everyone filled their glasses and 
drank : 

“The Queen — God bless her ! ” 

And then the talking was resumed, 
and the time for crackers had come. 

Pop ! — pop ! The long voyage 
had affected Mr. Tom Smith’s pro- 
ductions in some cases, and they 
missed fire. Queenie pulled a 
good many with several different 
people — for was she not the guest 
of the evening, they told her ! But 
Appleton had his share. 

“ This was quite true, quite true — 
believe me,” he hazarded, after read- 
ing the motto which fell from the 


CHRISTMAS AT CURRIPORE, l8l 


last they had exploded. ‘‘Will you 
keep it as a little remembrance of 
this Christmas,” he added, with a 
very pleading look. 

“ Sweetest eyes were ever seen, 

They belong to you, my queen." 

She blushed, and laughed. 

“ What nonsense ! ” 

But all the same she stuck it in the 
glove which she was buttoning, for 
the ladies had risen to depart. 

When Appleton with the others 
rejoined them in the anteroom, he 
spied Queenie, who, weary of looking 
at stale English papers and listening 
to station gossip, was sitting on a 
low chair in the dim veranda. He 
drew another to her side and sat 
down. 

The moon had risen — a great In- 
dian moon — shining with a marvel- 
ous clearness, and casting inky 
shadows. Across from the barracks 
came faint snatches of songs, as if 
Christmas revelry was still going on, 
broken now and again by the hour 
struck on the guard- room gong, or 
the challenge of the sentry. Inside, 
the room was crowded, whist par- 
ties were settling down to play, and 


i 82 in tent and bungalow. 


there came a click of balls from 
the billiard-room. Queenie idly 
watched the people talking. 

But Appleton’s head bent lower 
and lower over the little white figure 
in the chair. He hardly knew how 
he began, or what he said ; but he 
found himself pleading with a pas- 
sion that Queenie could not stop. 

Suddenly, however, her face grew 
quite white ; she caught her breath, 
and laid her hand on his arm. A 
figure had come and sat down in a 
chair opposite the window, taking up 
a newspaper. It was Ruffleby’s 
guest. 

Lionel! here ! ’’gasped Queenie. 

And you never told me ! ” 

Appleton followed her eyes, be- 
wildered. 

Lionel,” he echoed. Who's 
Lionel ? ” 

My Lionel ! ” she said faintl}^ 

Lionel Banks.” 

He looked at her. utterly puzzled. 
He knew Banks was the name of the 
visitor. 

‘‘Your Lionel?” he repeated. 

“Yes, of course; we’re engaged, 
you know ! ” 

She did not even look at him 


CHRISTMAS AT CURRIPORE. 183 


(though he staggered as if he had 
received a blow, and clutched the 
door-post for support), but rose and 
advanced eagerly into the room. 

But within two paces of the 
stranger, who had laid down his 
paper and risen, she stopped short. 

I — I beg your pardon ! I have 
made a mistake ! ” 

Not at all,” said Ruffleby's guest. 

I asked who you were, so may I 
introduce myself as Lionel’s twin- 
brother^ of whom he has probably 
told you. I know all about your 
little affair, and you have my best 
wishes.” 

She grasped his hand warmly. 
Then she turned her head to look for 
Captain Appleton, whom she had left 
in the doorway. 

But at Banks’s last words the lat- 
ter had vanished,, and was seen no 
more that night. 

It was Christmas Day again, a year 
after. But all our actors have left 
Curripore. The regiment, after a 
long march, have arrived at Gurama- 
bad. But it is by no means so cheer- 
ful a Christmas they are spending 
there. For Arthur Appleton, the 
best fellow in the corps, everyone’s 


184 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


friend, despite his quiet, grave ways, 
lies dying. 

A sickly hot weather, with no leave 
to the hills (he would not take any), 
and the long march have told upon 
him. Typhoid fever, that fiend of In- 
dia, had set in, weary, fluctuating, but 
ever sapping away at the strength. 
The doctor shakes his head, and 
gives little hope from the first. He 
has no heart in him to pull through,’' 
is his verdict. 

The prayer for the sick has been 
read, amid a hush, in the middle of 
the bright Christmas Day morning 
service. There were tears in hard 
eyes and lumps in strong men’s 
throats in B company barrack-room 
at the Christmas dinner, when the 
subaltern proposed, as usual, the cap^ 
tain’s health. The cheers died away 
on the lips with a sigh. The toast is 
drunk in silence, but from the hearts 
of all there. 

At the officer’s mess a gloom hangs 
over the dinner. Major Spanks has 
sat up many a night with Appleton, 
and little Ruffleby has stayed away 
from the Bulamabad race meeting, 
where he was to ride in the Cup. 
The fellows talk low, and with an 


CHRISTMAS AT CURRIPORE. 185 


evident effort, for the doctor has said 
Appleton will not last through the 
night. 

He lies apparently unconscious, on 
his little camp-bed, which they have 
drawn near the window to catch the 
cool air. The moonlight is flooding 
the veranda and casting unearthly 
shadows in the compound. The 
world is very still. Only the occa- 
sional bark of a prowling pariah, or 
the distant yell of a jackal, breaks 
the stillness. 

Suddenly the sick man moves. His 
dark eyes open, looking strangely 
large. His lips move. Ruffleby, sit- 
ting by the bedside, bends eagerly 
over him. 

What's to-day ? ” asks Appleby 
feebly. 

“ Christmas Day, old man," re- 
plied Ruffleby, in an unsteady voice. 

A wistful look comes into the dark 
eyes. 

“ Ah ! — last Christmas Day — at 
Curripore," he murmurs. 

They were his last words. His 
eyes close, and, by the morning's 
dawn, he is dead. 

Mr. and Mrs. Lionel Banks are 


l86 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


honeymooning in that favorite resort 
of newly married couples, the great 
Akbar’s deserted City of Victory, 
near Agra. They have taken up 
their quarters in that exquisite little 
pavilion of carved pink stone and 
marble which the passion of a magnifi- 
cent monarch built for his Christian 
wife, and which alone in all the ruined 
city is still fit for habitation. They 
have been out shooting black buck 
all day, on the plains around. Now 
they sit on camp-chairs in the pretty 
pillared veranda, resting. 

' “By Jove!” suddenly exclaims 
Lionel Banks, removing his cigar 
for a moment. “ I never thought 
of it, Queenie — it’s Christmas 
Day ! ” 

Queenie does not answer. Her 
eyes are gazing somewhat thought- 
fully out into the quiet moonlight. 

Lionel leans over the back of her 
chair, and kisses her pretty hair and 
forehead. 

“ You are very silent, little wife ? ” 

Was she, too, thinking of last 
Christmas at Curripore ? 



Sucb a Suspicion. 


NE of the things which sur- 
prise the new arrival in 
India most is the preva- 
lence of camp-life, and the 
luxury of its conditions. 
For this, the climate is 
answerable. Certainly to me, not 
many weeks out from “ home,'" our 
existence under canvas during the 
great Durbar of 187- seemed like a 
chapter out of some Eastern story. 

Everyone w^ho was in the shiny 
East at the time will remember that 
Durbar. It was no ordinary progress 
of a civilian commissioner through his 
district, or a visit of a governor, with 
his canvas village, to the outskirts 
of some great city of his province. 
It was not a purely business-like 
camp for great military maneuvers, 



1 88 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


comprising acres of soldiers’ lines, 
of picketed horses, and of parked 
guns. No, the Durbar of Pugree* 
pur was merely a pleasure perform- 
ance. The great Panjandrum him- 
self, with his satellites^ the Supreme 
Government, was there, his huge 
reception-tents the center of the can- 
vas city, to which miles of white 
canvas street converged. 

There were governors galore, 
commissioners, agents, and rajahs’ 
bear-leaders innumerable, and sol- 
diers of every sort and hue, in a 
bewildering kaleidoscope of uni- 
forms. But what most impressed 
my unaccustomed eyes was the 
camps of the native princes — such a 
mixture of wealth and shabbiness, of 
dirt and diamonds, of gold-laced 
uniforms and pink-dyed tails of 
horses, of elephants and canlels, of 
weirdly-braying bands, squalid tag- 
rag and bobtail, of perpetual squab- 
bles for precedence, and of conten- 
tions as to the exact number of guns 
they were entitled to in the way of 
salutes. 

Put the whole picture into a glit- 
tering, glaring setting of cloudless 
blue sky overhead, and of white dust 


SUCH A SUSPICION. 


189 


below, and you will have some idea 
what the Pugreepur Durbar was like 
that January. 

The days were devoted to endless 
receptions, to races and reviews ; the 
nights, to solemn official dinners and 
balls. There did not seem to be a 
moment’s breathing time. But we 
girls enjoyed ourselves hugely. 

And who were we ? 

We both owned, as mutual uncle, 
Mr. Woodhouse, B. C. S., Commis- 
sioner of the Bundelabad district of 
the East-by-West Provinces — that is 
to say, he was my uncle, and his wife 
Ida’s aunt. I had come out to spend 
the six months’ cold weather with 
the Woodhouses, and Ida, who had 
been left an orphan about a year 
before, had lived with them ever 
since. My uncle had come to the 
Durbar in the train of his Governor, 
him of the East-by-West Provinces, 
and our tents were next to the guber- 
natorial ones in the long street of the 
camp of the East-by-West officials. 

In front, opening on to a hastily 
improvised little flower bed of pots 
and shrubs, planted in the sand with 
much effectiveness in a land where 
turf is not, was the mess tent, where 


190 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


we entertained at every meal, when 
we were not being entertained our- 
selves. Behind that came the draw- 
ing-room tent, crowded with chintz- 
covered wicker-work settees and easy- 
chairs. The red-and-yellow striped 
linings of the tents gave a most 
becoming “ dim religious light '' to 
the interiors, which was very accept- 
able after the glare without. Of 
course the walls were devoid of 
ornament, and the doorway some- 
what low. Otherwise, to such a per- 
fection is camp-life carried in this 
land of perpetual picnic, that it is 
almost impossible to tell that you 
were not in ordinary and luxuriously 
furnished apartments. Behind, 
again, came two adjoining sleeping 
tents and bath rooms — one occupied 
by our uncle and aunt, the other by 
us girls. These opened into a little 
yard surrounded by canvas walls, 
where the servants came and went, 
and performed their culinary mys- 
teries. 

The time was 8 a. m. We girls, 
who had been out for a morning 
canter round the race course, were 
lounging in our riding-habits in easy- 
chairs, after the discussion of the 7:30 


SUCH A SUSPICION. 


191 


little breakfast." Our aunt, in a 
peignoir^ sat at her writing table, hav- 
ing just dismissed Kodar Bogus, the 
caterer, after inspecting his accounts 
and the menu for the day. 

Ida Macmorres, a handsome Irish 
girl, lay languidly back in her chair, 
holding before her in one hand a 
man’s visiting card, and with the 
other striking at flies upon the sofa 
with her riding whip. Her fair brow 
was somewhat ruffled, and she did 
not look particularly amiable. 

Aunt Jane," she began again, 
after a pause, taking up the conver- 
sation where it had dropped a few 
minutes before. 

Five, ten, thirteen, fourteen, 
twenty — dear me, what di lot of eggs 
Kodar Bocus does charge for!" mur- 
mured Aunt Jane from the writing 
table. 

‘‘ Aunt Jane," repeated Ida, impe- 
riously (she could be very imperious 
when she chose), ^^am I to under- 
stand you that I am to ^cut’ him 
then ? ” 

She waved the pasteboard toward 
us. I knew quite well the inscription 
it bore: Captain Arthur Blantyre, 

30th Bengal Cuirassiers. 


192 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


My dear child/’ remonstrated 
Aunt Jane, looking worried, twenty, 
twenty-five — twenty-five chittaks of 
butter. Good gracious! Yes, my 

dear child, your uncle, you know ” 

By ‘ cutting,’ I mean not to bow, 
not to speak, not to dance. I merely 
inquire for guidance during the next 
six months, till my twenty-first birth- 
day,” went on Ida icily. 

O Ida! ” remonstrated Aunt 
Jane, ready ta cry, ‘‘you are the 

most unfeeling ” 

“ And what are you and my uncle, 
I should like to know ? ” retorted the 
girl fiercely, dropping down on a fly 
dexterously with the lash of her rid- 
ing-whip. 

“ You know it’s for your good. Oh, 
don’t go on! ” 

You didn’t think of my.good in the 
hills this year,” Ida continued bit- 
terly. “ We might ride, and dance, 
and boat, and picnic, at Nynee Tal 
as much as ever we liked together. 
And then, when we got back to 
uncle, and Arthur writes — you turn 
round upon me! ” 

“ My dear child ! your uncle must 
know best.” And Aunt Jane tried 
to go back to her work. “ Kodar 


SUCH A SUSPICION. 


193 


Bogus is just ruining me ! I must 
compare books with Mrs. de Ferret. 
Dear Ida, do drop the subject ; it is 
closed. Girls, go and take your 
habits off ; it’s getting near breakfast 
time, and I’ve so many notes to write. 
Eleven — fourteen — and two make — ” 
And so on, while Ida stalked off 
angrily to her tent, and I sought out 
my uncle in his office tent. 

As usual he was surrounded with 
papers and red-uniformed chuppras- 
sees. But he never would allow I was 
in the way, and now he looked up at 
me with a smile. “ Uncle,” I began, 
with the freedom of a privileged 
person, ‘‘what’s all the row about ? 
What does Captain Blantyre do ?” 

“ What doesn’t he do ? ” returned 
my uncle wearily. “ I’m sick of 
him and the subject. If your poor 
aunt ever saw farther than the end of 
her nose, she would never have 
thrown the reins on Ida’s back as she 
did this summer in the hills, and 
make the job harder for me now.” 

“ But what is there against him, 
uncle — except that he’s awfully good- 
looking, and dances deliciously, and 
rides splendidly, and ” 

“ Plays hard and high, is deeply 


194 TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


dipped in the banks, hadn’t a penny 
to bless himself originally, and lives 
on other people’s now, is not above 
riding a horse in a race to suit his 
own pocket, and — do you want any 
more reasons ? ” 

Oh, uncle ! ” 

And to conclude, that, as I am 
Ida’s guardian, and as she will come 
into a hundred a year of her own 
when she’s of age, I most devoutly 
wish the 30th Bengal Cuirassiers and 
Captain Arthur Blantyre had not 
been ordered to the Pugreepur Dur- 
bar! ” 

When I returned to our sleeping- 
tent I found Miss Ida in anything 
but an engaging frame of mind. As 
I watched her scolding the patient 
ayah who was brushing her hair, I 
could not help wondering if, had 
Captain Blantyre been able to see 
her at that moment, he would have 
admired her as much as he professed 
to do. But then she was a girl who 
had had all her own way in life very 
much hitherto, though now, between 
the weak aunt, the stern, matter-of- 
fact guardian, and a pertinacious and 
undesirable lover, she seemed to be 
faring badly. 


SUCH A SUSPICION. 


195 


We had scant time, however, for 
any further discussion or reflection. 
To the 10:30 breakfast dropped in 
two or three intimates. No sooner 
was the meal concluded than calling- 
time began, and we girls had to help 
our aunt receive a seemingly endless 
stream of callers, paying the stiffest 
and shortest official visits. Then 
came a formal lunch, or ^‘tiffin,” at 
two o’clock, beginning with soup and 
ending with dessert, to which people 
armed each other in as to a dinner 
party. By the time the after-tiffin ” 
coffee and cigarettes were discussed, 
the landau with the gray country- 
breds, pheasants’ feathers at their 
ears, and with two grooms, armed 
with yaks’ tails as fly switches, stand- 
ing on the board behind, rumbled 
up to take us for our afternoon 
drive. To-day the attraction was a 
polo match, on a ground which had 
been improvised near the native city, 
and where we found everyone, from 
H. E. downward, watching, amid 
clouds of dust, the scurrying ponies 
of the 30th Bengal Cuirassiers versus 
the Crimson Lancers (British). Cap- 
tain Blantyre, playing for his regi- 
ment, and the captain of the polo 


196 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


team, was in brilliant form. Mur- 
murs of admiration over his splendid 
rushes and neat hits rang out from 
all around, and Ida’s eyes flashed 
proudly, and she looked very hand- 
some and triumphant as she watched 
the slim, well-knit figure in the red- 
and-white striped jersey. 

But, when the game was over, and 
the players, after refreshing them- 
selves at the peg-table, sauntered 
around to greet their acquaintances, 
cautious Aunt Jane peremptorily 
ordered her coachman to turn off the 
ground, and we took an unexciting 
drive round the civil lines and past 
the cemetery. Ida bit her lip and 
looked very sulky. 

There was one of the biggest balls 
of the Durbar on that night. But, 
first, we all went to a very dull and 
stately dinner at the Military Mem- 
ber of Council’s, the War Minister, 
as it were, of the Viceroy’s cabinet, 
an old friend of Uncle Woodhouse’s. 
I recollect how handsome Ida looked, 
in yellow tulle, as we girls went in, 
ready dressed, to my aunt’s tent 
before starting. 

Aunt Jane was rather late; she 
generally was the most unpunctual 


SUCH A SUSPICION. 


197 


of mortals, though Uncle Woodhouse 
tried to circumvent her, when they 
were at home in their bungalow, by 
keeping the clocks all half an hour 
fast. She was very flurried now, 
hastily pinning on her diamond orna- 
ments, while the ayah, with the usual 
perspicacity of her kind, kept bring, 
ing her gloves with no buttons and 
the wrong fan. 

But she found time to cast a criti- 
cal eye over us girls. 

‘‘Yes, you’ll do, Ida. Most be- 
coming, that yellow ! Mollie ” — to 
me — “ can’t you settle those flowers 
more smartly ? Oh ! ayah, quick, I 
don’t think I’ve got all my diamonds 
on. One — two — three — four ; I never 
quite can remember how many there 
ought to be.” 

For Aunt Jane was dressed in all 
her glory — a blue velvet gown, Eu- 
rope made, of three seasons ago 
London style, her pilce de rdsistance^ 
and she wore all her diamonds. Now, 
Aunt Jane’s diamonds were famous 
throughout the East-by-West Prov- 
inces, and would have been noticed 
even in a London drawing-room. 
They were part of her late father 
General Rice Curry’s loot from the 


198 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


sack of the Maharajah’s palace at 
Cumberbund, in the first Sikh war. 
She was literally blazing now that we 
had bedecked her podgy little person 
with the brooches and necklaces. 

“ Gracious, aunt,” I exclaimed, 
should be afraid of being robbed and 
murdered in my sleep if I were you ! 
So easy for a ‘slithering’ native to 
creep in under kanaut [canvas 
side of the tent].” 

But then Uncle Woodhouse was 
heard raving that we were late for 
dinner, and we all hurried out, and 
thought no more about the dia- 
monds. 

After the dinner-party, uncle went 
home and to bed, but Aunt Jane 
took us girls to the Viceroy’s ball. 
It was the most brilliant scene I had 
ever beheld — such a mass of superb, 
full-dress uniforms, and, in corners, 
begemmed Rajahs, with diamond 
aigrettes in their turbans worth mill- 
ions, looking stoically on at our 
strange mania for dancing. 

Ida looked very handsome, and 
was much sought after. But Aunt 
Jane kept a lynx eye upon her, 
and saw that she did not dance with 
the objectionable Captain Blantyre, 


SUCH A SUSPICION. 


199 


at least till supper-time. .But when 
that great moment came, always a 
solemn one in an Indian official ball, 
Aunt Jane was too engrossed in see- 
ing that she got her rightful prece- 
dence, to think of anything else. 

I was sitting out one of the supper 
dances in a very dim, small tent, 
pitched in the Viceroy’s garden in- 
closure for the guests, when the 
night air struck me as chilly, and my 
partner went off to the cloak-room to 
fetch my cloak. I was left sitting 
alone in a dark corner. To me 
enter, without perceiving my pres- 
ence, another couple, who evidently, 
to judge by the following conver- 
sation, imagined the spot unoccu- 
pied. 

She : I am directly disobeying 
them in even speaking to you. But 
I do not care — another six months ! ” 
He (in a low tone): ‘^Six months — 
oh ! my poor girl, you don’t know — 
it will be too late ! " 

She: ^‘Too late! What do you 
mean ?” 

He: That I’m in a devil of a 
mess — done for — ruined ! ” 

She: Arthur ! ” 

He: The last three nights’ poker 


200 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


at the — HussarS’ mess ; then ‘ True 
Blue' losing by a head. Ida, Tm 
ruined, dishonored ! ” 

She: '‘Dishonored, Arthur?” 

Pie: “I mean it. My troop-money 
is deficient: it will be found out in two 
days, and I can’t lay my hands on a 
farthing ; not a shroff (moneylender) 
will look at me. But I won’t face it ; 
my mind’s made up— we must say 
good-by forever ; there’s but one way 

for me out of it all ” 

She (wildly): “Arthur! Arthur! 
don’t talk like that ! Something 

must, shall be done ! I ” 

He: “ My poor child, what can you 
do? Even if you had power over 
your own poor little money, it would 
not go far enough.” 

She (excitedly, after a moment’s 
pause): “ But how much would — what 
would tide you over — a few thousand 
rupees ? ” 

He: “They would tide me over, 
could I get them. But, darling, 
what’s the use of deluding ourselves 
with vain ” 

They were suddenly interrupted 
by the entrance of my partner with 
the cloak, and left me filled with dis- 


SUCH A SUSPICION. 


201 


may, for they were my cousin Ida 
and Captain Blantyre. 

I didn’t enjoy the rest of the ball a 
bit, I felt so unhappy and uneasy, 
and was delighted when Aunt Jane, 
who was very sleepy, took us back to 
our tents. 

The excitement had tired me out, 
and I hurried into bed and soon fell 
fast asleep. Only once I was half 
aroused. A figure was crossing the 
tent. I jumped up, alarmed, but saw 
it was only Ida in her dressing-gown, 
and with her hair down. 

Go to sleep, Mollie,” she said ; 
“I’ve got such a headache that I have 
been to get a whiff of air,” 

When I awoke again it was broad 
daylight. Ida’s bed was empty, but 
by mine stood the ayah, wringing her 
hands. 

“ Oh ! Miss Sahib, something 
dreadful — other miss gone ride ; 
Mem Sahib still sleep — snore ; but, 
oh ! in night dreadful thief come — 
all Mem Sahib’s di’monds gone. Oh ! 
poor ayah ; ayah be beaten.” And 
she began to howl. 

I was up in a moment. Instantly 
my remark of the night before, when 


202 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


my aunt was putting on her jewels, 
flashed into my mind. I stole into 
her room. There she lay, snoring 
peacefully, but her jewel-case upon 
the dressing table was empty ; every 
one of the little velvet receptacles 
which contained the priceless 
brooches and pendants — vanished! 

Chokedar [watchman] he sleep — 
Miss Sahib, Mem Sahib — all sleep. 
Thief he come very, very gentle — 
so — ” (and the ayah pointed to the 
aperture between the tent and the 
ground). “ No one see ! ” And she 
beat her breast. 

I stared bewildered at the place 
she pointed at, when a slight rustle 
behind the curtain which separated 
the tent from the next caught my 
ear. I looked up and saw Ida’s face 
peeping through — a face so white 
that my heart stood still ; for I sud- 
denly remembered how I had seen it 
bending over me in the night. 

In a moment there came back to 
me the dreadful conversation I had 
overheard at the ball, and the most 
horrible suspicions flooded my mind. 

Without a word I crept back to my 
bed, thankful that Ida remained in 
the veranda of her tent» where I 


SUCH A SUSPICION. 203 


could hear her (one hears everything 
under canvas) having chota hazari 
with our uncle, the clatter of the tea- 
cups, the bearer coming in with the 
English letters (it was mail morning), 
and my uncle’s comments over the 
new Times. 

But suddenly, amid it all, I heard 
the clatter of horse’s hoofs, a sudden 
stoppage in front of our tents, and 
a familiar voice, strong, firm, and 
cheerful: 

‘‘ Mr. Woodhouse, I am Captain 
Blantyre, of whom you have heard. 
I know you have forbidden me your 
house, and to speak to your ward ; 
but I have just received by the mail 
unexpected intelligence, which places 
me in a position entitling me to ask 
you to give her to me. My uncle in 
Scotland, Sir Alexander Blantyre, 
has suddenly lost his two sons — 
drowned, bathing. I am his heir, 
and he wishes me to leave the service 
at once, and come and live near him 
and look after his property. May I 
take Ida with me ? ” 

Oh, the villain ! The consum- 
mate liar ! The plot they have 
hatched ! ” I said to myself with a 
groan. 


204 IN TENT AND BUNGALOW. 


Then Aunt Jane, awakened by the 
noise, called me hurriedly. 

“ Mollie,” she cried, the ayah’s 
gone mad ; she says my diamonds 
are stolen ! ” 

“ Indeed, my poor aunt,” I said 
gently, ‘‘ every case has been clean 
swept off.” 

Rubbish ! ” said Aunt Jane. ‘‘ I 
was too tired to put them away last 
night. See here ! ” 

And, hopping out of bed, she 
snatched up her best lace cap, which 
lay on the dressing table. 

Beneath it reposed the diamonds, 
intact. 

The police found the velvet cases 
a few days later in the bazaar, sold 
by a dismissed servant. 

Ida and Captain Blantyre were 
married at the close of the Durbar, 
and went home directly. But I have 
never kept up Sir Arthur and Lady 
Blantyre’s acquaintance. 


THE END, 



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